The Prophecy Of Two
by Majick
Summary: On one side: The Slayer and Harry Potter. On the other: The Master, Spike and Voldemort. A prophecy sends Harry and friends to Sunnydale where Voldemort seeks to resurrect the Master and strike an unholy deal: Turn them all to vampires and rule the world!
1. Prologue

**_Prologue_**

_Sunnydale, California, 1999. _

_One week after the graduation ceremony at Sunnydale High._

"Buffy, over here!"

Buffy spun around, her leg moving in an arc that hit its apex as her heel connected with the vampire's chin. The vamp staggered backwards, and into the stake held by the onrushing Xander.

The vamp screamed in fury and dismay at being staked, and then paused as it realised it had yet to crumble into a pile of dust. It looked down at the stake protruding from its stomach, and then reared up, its fangs searching for Xander's defenceless neck.

Xander stumbled backwards, scrabbling in his pockets for any weapon that could save his life. But as the vampire lunged, so did Buffy, with Mr. Pointy spearing the vamp's heart and spine. Xander sighed in relief as the vamp exploded into dust, the wind billowing the particles away to reveal a patient Slayer.

Buffy extended her hand to her friend and pulled him upright.

"Kinda frisky tonight," Buffy commented, stirring a small pile of vampire dust with the toe of her boot.

"Yeah, no kidding," Xander agreed. "I haven't felt that vulnerable since Faith..."

Xander shut up quickly as Buffy gave him a Look.

"Where're Will and Oz?" Xander asked, ducking his head to try and hide the slight blush colouring his cheeks.

"They said they were going to check out the old Wiseman crypt."

"Ah, party central for all of Sunnydale's geekiest vamps."

"Xander..." Buffy said, as they headed north through the cemetery.

"I'm just saying. Time was around here that vamps killed the strong and the mighty. Now they're going after the Kent Preparatory chess club."

"Yeah, but now they're _smart_ vamps."

"No, they're not. Will used to be in the Sunnydale High chess club. They asked her to leave because they hated being beaten by her."

"Really? That's so sad."

"Yeah, well, you know what it's like. Eighteen year old boy losing to a fourteen year old girl... It's embarrassing."

"There speaks a man with experience."

"Hey!" Xander barked indignantly. "That kid's dad bought her a _Tekken_ machine for her bedroom!"

"Or maybe she paid for it herself with the money she kept winning off eighteen year old boys who don't know when they're being hustled."

"Anyway..." Xander replied, with a Look of his own. Buffy grinned at him. "What I'm saying is, these vamps are just the geeks with no friends and no social skills. Playing chess doesn't make you smart. _I_ used to play chess."

"Until you got beaten by a fourteen year old girl?"

"She was fifteen and I swear if Willow tells that story to anyone else-"

"BUFFY!"

They broke into a run, leaving Xander's dire threats hanging as they approached the Wiseman crypt.

"Will?"

"Willow!"

"Over here!"

They turned a corner and found Willow standing outside the Wiseman crypt, fidgeting on the spot as she stared at the crypt door. It hung open on its hinges, the solid steel slab twisted and ripped as though it were paper.

"The strong and the mighty, huh?" Buffy commented as Xander rushed up to Willow. She stared at the door, wondering how many vamps it had taken to damage such a strong crypt.

"Will, what happened?"

"Oh, oh, it's Oz. They got Oz."

"They got Oz?"

"There was so many of them. They grabbed him and took him into the crypt."

Willow shifted uneasily. Buffy could tell she was torn between heading into the crypt and staying alive. Buffy had no such worries.

"We'll get him out, Will," she assured her friend. "Hey," she added, laying a hand on Willow's arm. "He's our friend. He makes you happy. Lots of incentive for me to go in there and drag him out, okay?"

"Hey, goodies!"

They turned to look at Xander, who was pulling a battle-axe from the ground.

"Oh, yeah, I got one..." Willow tailed off. "There was so many of them!"

"Well, they were probably off to the all-state summer chess tournament. They'd have had their cheerleaders with them and stuff." Xander said.

"Cheerleaders? For the chess team?" Buffy asked, momentarily distracted.

"Kent Prep is... different to other schools," Xander replied. He swung the battle-axe up and onto his shoulder, waving the other hand at the damaged crypt. "Still, much as I like discussing those schools where cheerleaders are picked on the size of their braces and the thickness of their glasses, times-a-wasting. Shall we?"

* * *

"Nearly a year. Are you sure everything is correct?" The voice was high pitched, but carried an undertone of menace.

"Yes, Master. Everything," came the reply. It was delivered in a quavering voice that suggested that the speaker was not at all sure.

"I am forced to place a great deal of faith in you once more. Do not fail me."

"I didn't fail you before."

"Before you had my loyal follower to assist you. This time you have had to act on your own. This does not instill in me great confidence."

"We have the blood, the bone, and the flesh, my lord. We have everything."

"Very well. But I have strength enough to end your miserable existence. Remember that, worm."

In the darkness of the firebombed factory, a flame erupted, illuminating a small circle around a heavy black cauldron.

"You have the ashes?"

"I do."

"Good. For vampires, of course, it works differently. Any vampire can be revived, given sufficient willpower. And the one thing I have never lacked is willpower. Pour them in, and pray that you can tell the dust of crushed bones from dirt."

A robed figure detached itself from the shadows and tipped a small bag of dust into the cauldron. The water inside hissed as it boiled.

"Bone of the father," the figure muttered uneasily. "Unknowingly given, you shall restore your son."

The figure reached inside its bulky hooded robes, and pulled a long thighbone from a pocket. The bone slid into the glowing water which shot sparks into the air and turned a vivid blue.

"Flesh of the servant," the figure continued, drawing a severed hand from inside its robes. A purple glow surrounded it, shimmering slightly in the firelight. "Willingly given, you shall revive your master."

"Quickly! The spell will only retain its effectiveness for so long."

The hand was dropped into the water, and not a moment too soon. Even as it broke the surface of the water the hand began to crumble and turn into ash. The hooded figure looked back into the gloom.

"Faster, fool."

The figure turned back to the cauldron, the contents of which were now a searing red in colour. "Blood of the enemy," it announced, its voice noticeably stronger, as though it had anticipated this moment. "Forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe."

A glass phial was tipped upside down, and the blood inside dripped slowly into the cauldron. The robed figure stepped back quickly as the water inside sparked and glowed a fierce, burning white.

And then, from the light there rose a tall, lithe figure, proud and straight. The sparks faded, and the light died. Pale and naked, the figure stood unafraid and unashamed in the near-darkness.

"Did someone call?"

There was a pause.

"I have resurrected you," the high-pitched voice declared.

"This I had noticed. And you are?"

"A friend."

"I doubt it," the pale figure sighed, examining the back of its hand, apparently not noticing the scalding water still bubbling around its legs. "I ate most of my friends. Tortured the rest, for the variety."

"I am a new friend. I have a gift for you."

A black-clad figure was shoved roughly into the circle of light. It shot a malignant look over its shoulder, before turning to look up at the figure standing in the cauldron.

"Master," it said, its fangs glinting in the firelight as its features shifted from those of an ordinary human male to that of a vampire. "You have returned. I have helped you come among us once more!"

The vampire held up its right arm, which ended in a bloody stump.

"Hmm. Good of you," the pale figure replied. "And now, I need your clothes."

"What-"

A pale arm struck out, thumb and forefinger stabbing into the vampire's eyes. It screeched, and the pale arm withdrew, only to slice across the vampire's neck, the sharp claws on the end of each finger slashing through the skin and muscle. With a sharp jerk, the figure tore off the vampire's head. The body crumpled to the ground, where it exploded into ash. The pale figure stepped from the cauldron and picked up the clothes the vampire had left behind.

"I had always believed that the clothes turned to dust with the vampire," the high voice spoke from the darkness.

"There's a knack," the newly clad figure replied. "Who are you, resurrecting me in this filthy old ruin?"

"As I have told you, I am a friend. And you are the Master, also known as Heinrich Joseph Nest. You were sired by the vampire Anonatus in 1387, and killed him in 1389, becoming the leader of the Order of Aurelius in the process. For five and a half centuries you killed and slaughtered throughout the world. In 1937 you came to Sunnydale to feast upon the Hellmouth, but you were trapped by an earthquake. In 1997 you escaped, only to be killed by the Slayer. And now I have resurrected you."

"Well," the Master declared. "Apparently you have the advantage of me. Now, before I come into the shadows and tear your heart out for not answering my question twice now, would you like to give me a reason not to?"

"Firstly, you would find it very hard to find my heart," the high voice declared, with an audible sneer. "Secondly, I have a wand aimed directly at _your_ heart. While I deplore waste, I will kill you if need be."

"A wand," the Master mused. "Well, the least I can do is hear you out. You did bring me back from the very depths of hell."

"And for that I ask only one thing in repayment."

"And that is?"

"I want you to turn somebody into a vampire."

A glass ball sailed out of the shadows. The Master caught it and peered at the image contained within it.

"Him?"

"Him."

* * *

Buffy pivoted and planted her foot into the vampire's chest. It sailed backwards, crashing into two of its fellows and bearing them to the ground.

"Will!"

"I'm trying, Buffy. Kinda hard to concentrate right now!"

Willow was being backed into a corner by two vampires with greasy hair and thick spectacles.

"If you weren't vamps, I could kick _both_ your asses. At the same time!" she moaned. "Oh..."

Her eyes flickered shut, and she began to mutter under her breath. The air around her shimmered, and the vampires looked around, blinking several times.

"It worked!" Willow grinned excitedly. "Invisibility!"

The vampires sneered, revealing their long, pointed fangs. They began to move towards her again.

"Oh, but not silence. Oh..."

Xander was defending himself with the battle-axe. Cheerleaders surrounded him, each of them bearing two fluffy pom-poms and two sharp fangs.

"Uh, give me a 'S'?" Xander quavered. "No? Alright, how about you girls form a cross and kill yourselves?"

The tallest of the vamp-cheerleaders spread her arms and tilted back her head to snarl.

"Okay, good cross. _Good_ cross. Guess it has to be blessed or something to really freak you girls out, though, huh? How's this?"

Xander swung the axe, catching the tallest vampire in the neck with the edge of the blade. The vampire exploded into dust, leaving behind a pair of forlorn looking pom-poms.

"Hey, go me! Home run, huh?" Xander said, looking around at the other cheerleaders. "Uh, give me an 'X'?"

As one, the remaining cheerleaders leapt forward.

"...crap."

Buffy struggled against the two vampires holding her arms. A third was pacing back and forth before her, all acne and pocket protectors, just out of reach. Over its head, she could see a huge vampire wearing nothing but a loincloth daubing itself in paint - _or is that blood?_ - while before it, and tied to the top of a huge stone tomb, was Oz, apparently unconscious. As Buffy watched and struggled, the huge vampire finished its self-decoration and drew a long knife from a holder on the wall.

The prowling vampire looked over its shoulder at the huge figure and turned back to Buffy, a feral grin on its twisted face. It took a step closer.

Buffy sprang backwards, her legs flashing up and over her head in a standing somersault kick that sent the spotty vampire crashing backwards. Buffy pivoted, throwing the two vampires holding her into one another.

"Oz!"

She sprang forward, clearing the dazed vampire on the floor and was halfway to the tomb when she was tackled by a heavy-set vampire tackled her. She crashed to the ground, momentarily stunned as she stared upwards at the bulky figure bearing down on her.

"You were in the chess club?" she asked.

The vampire's thick forehead knitted in consternation, before he shook his head.

"No, football team," he grinned. "I was on _detention_ with the chess club."

"Figures," Buffy gasped, as the football player seized her around the throat and squeezed.

The world around her blurred, and black spots began to appear before her eyes. She kicked feebly, unable to focus the concentration needed to break the football player's grip. Her eyes flickered shut, the last thing she saw the teeth of the vampire as it eased off its grip on her neck to sink its fangs into her.

"_Relashio_"

There was a roar, and screams. Buffy felt the pressure on her disappear as the vampire moved away. To her, it felt like he'd leapt off her.

_Oz. Must get to Oz._ But her body refused to move.

And then roaring voices once more.

"_Palum_"

Over and over the yell came, and to Buffy's ears there came the ever-welcome sound of vampires exploding into dust. She risked opening her eyes, and was able to tilt her head a little.

A tall man with flaming red hair was waving something at the pile of vampire cheerleaders, and to Buffy's bleary gaze it seemed as though the vampires were dusting at his command.

She turned a little, and saw a woman with the same red hair playing a long tail of flame over the huge football player who'd tackled her. As she watched, the football player exploded into ash.

Two more figures stood back to back, one male, one female. They were acting in smooth synchronicity, dusting vampires seemingly with a wave of their hands.

Buffy tried to sit upright, but slumped backwards. Her head lolled to one side, and she saw a fifth figure standing in front of the huge, half-naked vampire that had apparently been about to sacrifice Oz.

_Look out!_ It sounded good in Buffy's mind, but no sound came from her throat. She tried again, but only the faintest rasping escaped her lips. Even as she watched, though, she realised that no warning was necessary.

The figure - _man_ - raised his hand to the vampire's chest. Buffy could see that he was holding a pointy bit of wood. Even as Buffy thought _Well__, that's dumb. You need to thrust a stake. He won't just impale himself!_ The man yelled "_Palum_" and the vampire erupted into dust.

"Wow. We're getting _good_!"

"Ron!"

"Well, we are! That must have been thirty vampires between the five of us."

"Well, they weren't very difficult, were they? _And_ one got away."

"They were freshly turned, I'd say," a third voice cut in, more mature than the voice of the bickering male and female. "But Ron's right, too. We did well."

Buffy risked sitting up once more, but her body still wasn't quite ready to believe she could manage it.

"Here."

She looked up, and slowly took the proffered hand. As she was pulled upright, she found herself staring into a pair of emerald-green eyes.

_So that's what Willow means when she says I look like I'm wondering how to save the world,_ Buffy thought. Her eyes scanned the rest of the face, taking in the shock of black hair that sprang in all directions, the two scars that ran parallel lines across one cheek, the third scar that ran jaggedly across his forehead and the deep lines that bunched around the corner of his eyes.

"Buffy Summers?" he asked, and Buffy's mind jolted. _They all sound like Giles. Are they Watchers?_

She nodded. "Who are you?" she croaked.

"Oh, were you hurt?" One of the women stepped forward, and Buffy recognised her as the one who had stood back to back with one of the men in the fight. Looking around, she took stock of the five newcomers. The tallest and shortest stood side by side, their hair a flaming red in contrast to their black jeans and grey sweatshirts. They both had pale, almost translucent skin, and a thick dusting of freckles across their cheeks and noses. Behind them, examining the tomb and letting Oz free - Buffy gave a guilty start at realising she hadn't seen how her friends were, but a quick look assured her now that they were all okay, if a little shaken - was an older man with thick grey hair. Buffy assumed he was the mature voice she had heard earlier.

A tingling in her throat drew her attention back to the woman in front of her. She realised, upon closer inspection, that the woman was probably about the same age as her, but carried herself with a poise that suggested maturity far beyond her years. Her red-haired companions were also about the same age but both had the air about them that came from seeing too much too soon. Buffy recognised it as the look she saw in the mirror every day.

She turned her attention back to the black-haired man, whom she realised had been watching her intently the whole time. She met his gaze steadily, and noted absently that the pain in her throat was gone. She wondered what the young woman had done to it.

The black-haired man extended his hand again, looking slightly uncomfortable.

"We've come from England," he said. "There was a prophecy..." he tailed off, looking still more uncomfortable. "My name's Harry Potter. I need your help."

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter One: Welcome To Sunnydale

**The Prophecy Of Two**

**_Chapter One: Welcome To Sunnydale_**

"So, you're wizards," Xander repeated. It was the third time he'd asked, and Buffy wasn't sure that it was going to be accepted any easier this time than the last two times that he'd been answered.

"And witches," Willow added, looking at the two women with what Buffy sometimes thought of as her 'Help there's a cute guy talking to me!' look.

"I hadn't imagined that there were so many of you," Giles said, turning one of the visitor's wands over and over in his hands. He hadn't taken kindly to being awakened at one in the morning, but now he seemed to be the most alert person in the room.

"You knew about this?" Buffy asked, waving her hand at the five visitors. Harry cocked his head and looked at her, as though slightly put out by being described as 'this'. Ginny, the red-haired witch, followed suit. Remus, the older wizard, just looked at her with a wry smile that she recognised as one of Giles' 'You're being American and so I'll just be tolerant until it goes away' expressions. Ron, the red-haired wizard and Ginny's brother, seemed set to fall asleep. Hermione, the bushy-haired witch, was prodding him discreetly with her wand as she stared raptly at Giles.

"Well, I..." Giles stared up at the ceiling, his expression clouding over. "Shortly after I left university, I fell in with a bad crowd, as you know."

"Ethan and the others," Willow elucidated for Xander, who appeared to be transfixed by the visitors.

"Right, right... Who?" Xander asked, looking away from Ginny.

Giles sighed. "Ethan Rayne, worshipper of Chaos, turned you lot into Halloween puppets and me into a seventeen year old, yes?"

"Oh, right, Ethan _Rayne_," he replied, with a smile at Hermione.

"Anyway, shortly after I started spending time with Ethan, he arranged for us to meet in this really dingy pub in the middle of London called, oh, now, what was it... Ah yes. The Leaky..."

"...Cauldron?" Ron offered.

"Yes, yes, that's it," Giles smiled. "Anyway, he was there with two other young men around our age. We went to Ethan's flat, and these two men started telling us about this powerful wizard they only called the Dark Lord. They did a couple of spells with their wands, which impressed Ethan and I no end. They could do things that we could only dream of."

"Do you remember their names?" Remus asked, staring intently at Giles. "Or anything about them?"

"Sadly not. It must have been twenty-five years ago now. One of them had very blonde hair, but other than that..."

Harry and Ron exchanged a significant look, but said nothing.

"Anyway, that was the only time I ever came across wizards like yourselves. Until tonight, anyway. I think Ethan may have seen them a few times, but I seem to remember that when he found out he couldn't do magic in the same way they could, he lost patience and interest."

"You had a lucky escape, Mr. Giles," Hermione said quietly. "It sounds like you and your friend met with Death Eaters."

"Death Eaters?" Xander asked, smirking. "What do they do, team up with Sickness Drinkers for a funky cabaret act."

"They're the followers of the Dark wizard Voldemort, possibly the most powerful wizard on Earth this century. They kill people. Muggles, muggle-born wizards, anyone who disagrees that pure-blood wizards are the supreme race."

"Oh."

"Muggles?" Buffy asked.

"Non-wizards, like you or I," Giles said. "No, the two I met didn't mention that. I suppose for a pair of _Muggles_ like myself and Ethan, it wouldn't have been the most convincing sales pitch."

"But what brings you here?" Willow asked. "I mean, you said you'd been fighting these Death Eaters in Britain, right?"

"Until a year ago, yes," Remus said. "Then, last summer, Voldemort and his forces attacked Hogwarts school in Scotland where these four were studying."

"What happened?" Buffy asked, feeling a surge of empathy for anyone who had been to a school as incident-prone as Sunnydale High had been.

"We fought," Harry said. "The entire school against Voldemort's forces. They were trying to kill eleven year old children."

"Harry stopped them," Ginny said.

"On your own?" Oz asked.

"No, I went after Voldemort while everyone did what we'd been training them to do."

"Harry, Ron and I set up a group of pupils to learn Defence Against The Dark Arts during our fifth year," Hermione explained.

"It was chaos, but I found him in the middle of the school grounds," Harry said, his eyes unfocused behind his glasses. "I ran up to him, hexing anyone who got in my way and stuck a sword through his chest."

"I've been slaying vampires for four years, so I have to ask..." Buffy said. "It didn't kill him, did it?"

"No, it didn't," Harry said. "He Apparated away - that's teleportation - and we finished off the Death Eaters soon after. He ran, and now we think he's back."

"Our leader, Albus Dumbledore, has close contacts with your Watchers Council," Remus continued. Buffy felt her expression freeze on her face at the mention of her former supervisors. "He learned from them that someone had been collecting certain items needed for a resurrection spell."

"What items?"

"Blood from one of their agents, and the bones from the grave of a German nobleman, Joseph Nest."

"Oh good Lord," Giles said. "You don't mean..."

Hermione dug into the backpack that sat at her feet, and pulled out a silvery amalgamation of metallic widgets. Buffy tilted her head to try and work out what it was meant to do, but when Hermione set it on Giles' coffee table, she stopped wondering. A silvery mist spouted from somewhere in the middle of the device and took a form Buffy found all too familiar.

"At approximately one twenty three a.m. Pacific Standard Time," Hermione said, "this device recorded a surge of energy from one of the demon dimensions. It was a recognised side effect of the resurrection spell identified as that used to return the spirit of Voldemort to his body, and it was a recognised spirit pattern that was retrieved."

Buffy stared at the smoky image as it revolved above the device. Bat-eared, with long talons protruding from each finger and the twisted face that identified a truly ancient vampire, the figure had at one time haunted Buffy's dreams for months. She only partially subdued a shudder as she stared at his horrific visage once more.

"The Master," she whispered. "He's back."

* * *

"Voldemort? You must have been after my time."

"Only by a decade or so. I rose in the Dark Arts after the defeat of Grindelwald."

"Oh, Grindelwald's gone? Pity. He still owed me South America for the massacre in Bonn that time."

"Help me and I will repay you all that you are owed, and much, much more."

"All I have to do is turn this Potter child into a vampire? Easy enough. Shall we be off, then?"

"You are taking Potter too lightly," Voldemort declared. "He is easily the equal as a warrior of the Slayer who took your life."

"Well, I have something for that little girl as well. It will be a long night as it is, and you are not making things move any faster. Now, I have a dawn appointment with a crypt, so can we get on with it?"

"We will not move tonight."

The Master turned away from the window through which he had been surveying Sunnydale.

"Why not?"

"Potter put a sword through my chest, but I am recovering. The Summers girl impaled you on a wooden beam, and you died. Surely I am not asking too much that you follow my orders?"

The Master glared in Voldemort's direction, and then shrugged.

"Whatever. After two years, I am eager to kill again. But if you are not able to hunt tonight..."

Voldemort stepped out of the shadows, his red eyes blazing in his white, snake-like face.

"Do not irk me, Nest. You bring a great deal to our alliance, but you are a convenience. There are others out there in this town who could offer what you can."

"If that were true, why bother resurrecting me?"

"A lingering sentimental attachment to your work in Bonn," Voldemort replied, his lipless mouth splitting into a smile. "Surgical and precise. Grindelwald once said that you were worth everything he would have paid you."

"Ah, so, if in doubt, go to the best?"

Voldemort glared silently.

"Grindelwald had a sense of humour. You do know that?"

"Grindelwald is dead. I am not. This is but one of the many differences between the two of us."

"Fine," the Master sighed. "We shall wait. Doubtless word will spread of your arrival in Sunnydale, and the Slayer will come after us."

"I hope so," Voldemort replied. "Indeed, it is my belief that Potter and the Slayer will join forces, thus allowing us to rid the world of two annoying problems at once."

The Master sneered. "Your 'Chosen One' may die once and leave it at that, but the Slayer is harder to kill off. When one dies, another rises. A production line of tasty treats, if you catch them early enough, but once a Slyer gets some momentum behind her, she can become almost unstoppable."

"As you found to your cost," Voldemort smirked, his eyes glowing a deep crimson as he regarded his ally. "And yet, one of my informants tells me that a Slayer rose after you left the Summers girl to drown."

"There are two Slayers out there?"

"Perhaps. I am told that she was in league with the Summers girl for a time, but has not been seen for several days. I am still having my servant pursue enquiries regarding this matter."

"Well, I hope for his sake that he has the sense to stay well hidden. There are a lot of vampires in this town who will view that pathetic worm as an ideal pre-dinner snack."

"Wormtail has his skills, precious few though they are. He can disguise himself extremely well, and only the most desperate vampire would attempt to eat him once he is disguised."

"Wonderful, well, he's a lucky one," the Master said. "If I try and go out, I'll draw a crowd. Either loyal vampires, disloyal vampires or bothersome heroes trying to prove their worth to an indifferent world. When we hunt, Voldemort, pray that we go unnoticed, because if we attract a crowd I am in the mood for a killing spree that would remind the world why they had best fear vampires, demons, and things that go bump in the night."

Voldemort watched the Master's histrionics impassively.

"Your constant boasting suggests that you feel as though you have something to prove," Voldemort remarked calmly.

"Well, let me see..." The Master said, tapping his taloned fingers against his chin. "I spent sixty years buried inside a church, trapped by the holy aura and mystical energies that were folded into one another when the earthquake tore the town apart. Within an hour of my release, I was killed and trapped in the nether regions of hell for two years, a period of time that stretched for many, many centuries to my eyes. Think of me not as someone with something to prove, rather as someone with a thirst for blood that I won't satisfy until every person in this miserable town is dead or a vampire."

He paused.

"Then, I thought, a nice stroll along Fifth Avenue in New York, hit the theatre district, take in a show, take lives, instill panic, a pleasant evening in the Big Apple. Have my wave of terror emanating from several points at once, after that. I did a lot of thinking in those sixty years. With only images of a deity you don't believe in to keep you company, you find yourself making very complicated plans. Still, I keep coming back to the tried and trusted 'kill everything quickly and messily' which has served me so well in the past, Bonn not withstanding."

"So long as you remember our agreement," Voldemort said, disinterestedly. "Stay in America, and I won't have to kill you."

"Well, you stick to your continents, I'll stick to mine," The Master replied. "There should be enough to keep us both busy."

The Master turned back to the window and resumed his watch over the town beyond, occasionally baring his fangs as a particularly attractive target passed by on the street below.

_Better that we have the most up-to-date information, however. To kill one Slayer, only to have another stick a stake in my back would be misfortune indeed, and would certainly spoil my day. I suppose I must admit that this wizard is right about that. Still, it won't stop me killing him when I have what I want, and if this Potter is as powerful as he says, then perhaps I will turn him for my own use, rather than handing him over to Voldemort._

He squinted out the window at two shapes that were emerging from the shadows of the dark alley.

"Your servant has returned. And he's brought company."

"Good. Now we shall find out the latest news regarding the Slayer and her friends."

The door creaked open, and Wormtail slipped inside, turning to look upon his twin masters with the barest hint of a shudder. The Master bared his fangs, almost able to taste the fear burning off the feeble wizard.

"What have you brought us, Wormtail?"

"I-"

The door banged the rest of the way open, and a tall, blonde man strode in, his long trenchcoat swishing behind him. He walked into the centre of the room, looking first at Voldemort, and then at the Master. He stood exactly between the two of them, cradling a cigarette in one hand. Raising it to his mouth, he took a deep drag before blowing a long stream of smoke in Voldemort's direction.

"Ah! My boy," the Master smiled. "It's been too long."

"Well," the blonde man began. "Voldemort and the Master." He turned to look at the Master. "And me without my autograph book. Isn't it always the way? The one day you leave it at home."

He walked away from the centre of the room, looking around the burnt remains of the factory that had once been housed in the building.

"I must say, I love what you've done with the place. Not as nice as when I lived here, of course. Last time I hire a psychopathic librarian to do my interior decorating. Still," he took another drag on the cigarette. "Mustn't grumble. Only got back into town last night and already I've got me a paying gig. So," he turned, his features twisting and shifting into those of a vampire. He dropped the cigarette and crushed it beneath the toe of his boot. He looked up at Voldemort. "The name's Spike. Who am I killing, and how much are you paying me?"

* * *

With the Sunnydale High library the epicentre of an explosion powerful enough to rival a small volcano and Giles' apartment simply too small to handle such a large influx of guests, Buffy's house had become the centre of the new resistance movement. Ginny and Hermione had bedded down in the spare room with Willow. Buffy was helping Oz, Xander, Ron and Harry lay out bedthings in the lounge. Remus and Giles, both being scholarly by nature, had decided to spend the rest of the night researching the Master and any connections he might have to Voldemort and the Death Eaters.

Buffy had wandered into the kitchen to get the guys some water when she realised that she had been followed. Harry was stood in the doorway, watching her intently.

"Uh, hi?" she asked, turning to face him.

"Do you need a hand?" he asked, gesturing at the tray of cups she was holding.

"No, but thanks," she replied, cocking her head slightly. "You okay? Ron was practically asleep in there already."

"He's lucky," Harry replied, taking the tray of cups as though he hadn't heard what she'd said. "He can do that. When I know a fight's coming, I can't sleep."

"I learned," Buffy said. "I mean, sometimes I wished that I didn't. I used to have dreams. Prophecies, really."

"When I dream, sometimes I can see into Voldemort's head."

"Really? Sometimes the Master could see into mine. Can Voldemort see into yours?"

"I dunno. I don't think so. He can make me see things, sometimes. Visions..."

He tailed off, his face clouding over. Then he looked up, his expression determined and fierce.

"I'm going to get him. Now. Here. He's had a year when I've been chasing after him. And now it's going to end."

"Right," Buffy said, holding his intense gaze. "But I'm thinking that getting mad at him? Not gonna help you sleep."

He looked at her, and then his lips quirked into a smile. "You're right, of course you're right. But he's cost me a lot. He killed my parents, he's tried to kill me so many times I've lost count, and he's killed people I care about. When I was twelve, he tried to kill Ginny just so he could force me to fight him."

"Twelve?" Buffy's jaw dropped. "How long have you been fighting him?"

"The first time he came after me, I was a year old. He tried to kill me, but it backfired," Harry's eyes sparkled behind his glasses. "He was nearly killed. He survived as a spirit, a thought. No-one knows how. He came back when I was eleven, then when I was twelve, sort of. When I was fourteen, he got a body back. Fifteen, he tried to kill me and a lot of my friends, including Ron, Ginny and Hermione. My godfather saved us, but he died. Sixteen, he left me alone but he did kill two of my teachers and a lot of people in the resistance movement. Last year he came after me twice. The first time we fought to a draw when it was just us. Then he brought all his followers to my school, and we fought again."

Buffy looked at Harry in sympathy. She tried to imagine spending the whole of her adolescence fighting Spike and Drusilla, or the Master, or the Mayor. Her mind ached at the thought. She looked at Harry, and noticed again the deep lines spreading out from the corners of his eyes and the scars on his cheek. Her eyes travelled to the strange scar on his forehead. He looked at her impassively.

"It's where he tried to kill me as a baby. No-one knows why I have it, or how I survived."

Buffy reached up and rubbed the side of her neck. Two small scars were all that remained of her relationship with Angel, and those would surely fade in time. The scars from the Master's bite, two years before, had gone before that summer had passed.

"How do you keep going?" she asked.

"I was going to ask you the same thing," he replied, looking somewhat subdued. "At least I don't have to fight every night."

"I guess." She smiled. "Sucks to be the Chosen One, doesn't it?"

He looked at her curiously, and then nodded once, shortly.

* * *

"So, you're really witches," Willow said again, with a nervous giggle.

"We really are," Ginny replied.

"Did you, I mean, have you ever met another witch? Like me, I mean?"

"Not really," Hermione replied. "Sometimes you meet someone who claims to be a witch, but what they mean is that they think they look good in black and find moonlight romantic."

The three girls sighed.

"What you do, it looks effortless," Willow said, after a while. "It took me weeks to learn how to levitate things."

"But you learnt that on your own," Hermione said, sitting up. "I would never have understood about magic if I hadn't been able to go to Hogwarts."

"I had a head start," Ginny added. "I have six brothers, so I always knew that I'd be a witch."

"How long have you been practising?" Hermione asked.

"A little over a year," Willow replied.

"Well, you've come a very long way in such a short time," Hermione replied, sounding slightly put out. "Most of our wizards and witches can't manage invisibility. It's a very hard spell to master."

"It was cool, but it only lasted a few seconds," Willow sighed. "It'd be great if I could turn Buffy invisible."

"Because... You're jealous of her hair?" Ginny asked.

Willow smiled. "No, I want to be able to help her, fighting evil and all, but the best I can manage is a few glamours to cover her bruises before class. Do you guys know any real spells I could use?"

"A protective spell, you mean?" Ginny asked, looking at Hermione, who shook her head.

"Yeah. Something to make sure that Buffy's safe when she's fighting. I'd feel better, you know? I mean," she lay back on her bed. "I'm sure people must have looked for something before now. There must have been witches and wizards and warlocks who've helped the Council, who've helped the Slayer. But the Slayer always dies. _Buffy's_ died. She came back, but she died, and I don't want to lose her, not if I can help it."

There was a pause, and then Hermione said "I'm sorry, Willow, I really am. I don't know of any spells that can help you like that."

* * *

"We want to know about the Slayer," Voldemort declared.

"Yeah, okay, goodbye," Spike moved towards the door.

"_Colloportus_" Voldemort waved his wand, and the door slammed shut. Spike grabbed the handle and pulled. When nothing happened, he rattled it and began pounding on the charred steel. Spinning around, his gaze settled on the only window in the room. The Master shifted slightly so that he stood between Spike and the window.

"Bloody hell."

"You are familiar with the Slayer, then?" Voldemort asked.

"Familiar with her? _Familiar_ with her? Two years ago, I came to this poxy little town to kill her! Only she wouldn't die, would she? She kicked my arse halfway across the bloody state, and I wouldn't set foot in this dump again if I didn't need something here.

"The problem with this Slayer is that she's got friends. She's got people to watch her back, and they help keep her strong. Eat enough of them, and you might have a chance, but this Slayer is good. You want to know how good the Slayer is? Way I hear it, there was another Slayer in town these last few months. Apparently Slayer One and Slayer Two didn't get on so good, they had a big fight, and the original killed the second coming. She's got the killer instinct, this girl. She's got a life, and she's hell on anyone who tries to get in the way. So you can forget it. I am not having anything to do with the bloody Slayer. Find yourself another sacrificial lamb."

"We can pay you," Voldemort said. "Reward you beyond your wildest dreams. Name your price. Women? Blood? A state of your own?"

"Nothing on this earth could make me go after the Slayer again," Spike growled. "The only thing that made me come back here in the first place was the Gem of Amarra so you can take your women and your sodding blood and go f-"

"It's yours," the Master said.

"-yourself. What?"

"The Gem of Amarra. It grants invincibility and lets vampires walk in the sun, am I right? You can have it. I once discovered its whereabouts, but being trapped underground for sixty years makes going treasure hunting so inconvenient. Help us kill the Slayer and her friends, and I'll tell you where it is."

"Well," Spike said, his tone all business once more. "All right then! The Slayer, eh? I've been wanting to get my teeth into her..."

_To be continued..._


	3. Chapter Two: Research

**_Chapter Two: Research_**

"So, do you do this a lot then?" Ron asked, struggling under the weight of the grimoires Remus and Giles had given him to carry.

"Research? Oh yeah," Xander replied, grappling with his own stack of tomes. "About once a week, something comes up that requires an all-night book session."

Ron grunted something under his breath.

"You could do with learning a little of our hosts diligence, Ron," Hermione tutted, taking a book from Remus and flicking through it at high speed. "Just imagine if you'd actually done the work for your NEWTs instead of wasting your time on Quidditch!"

"Hermione, you did the work, I copied off you, I passed my NEWTs and got a contract from the Cannons. Everything worked out, right?"

Hermione rolled her eyes, and stalked off to where Willow and Harry were poring over ancient Watchers diaries.

"So, are they together, or do they just hate each other?" Buffy asked. Ginny's face creased into an amused grin.

"Very together. Today, anyway," she replied. "Ever since their sixth year, when Harry locked them in the changing rooms after Quidditch practice rather than listening to them arguing again."

"Quidditch?"

"It's the main wizarding sport. Like basketball on brooms, apparently."

"Oh."

Buffy's eyes moved away from the petite redhead and settled on the green-eyed wizard across the room. As she watched, he nudged his glasses further up his nose and leaned a little closer to Willow, who was pointing at a passage in her book. He nodded, and scratched a note on the pad of paper beside him.

"He seems pretty intense," she said absently.

"That's one way of putting it," Ginny replied, sneaking a look at Harry over the top of her own diary before turning back to the dry remembrances of a centuries-old Giles predecessor. "Single-minded, too. Ever since Professor McGonagall and Madam Hooch were killed on Christmas Day nearly three years ago, Harry's just been..." She tailed off, a haunted look crossing her features. "He'll kill Voldemort, it's been prophesied that one will defeat the other and every time they've fought Harry's come closer, but now there's this new prophecy..."

Buffy frowned, opening her mouth to ask about the new prophecy but Giles cleared his throat and drew her attention.

"Yes, well, I believe we all know our tasks. Everything we can find on the Master, everything we can find on Voldemort - are you all right?" he asked as Ron flinched. Ron shrugged and Giles continued. "Ever since the book-burners destroyed my collection of occult literature we have, of course, been struggling, but the Watchers diaries date back centuries, more than long enough to chronicle the rise of the Master _and_ of Voldemort. Yes?"

Xander had raised his hand.

"We know all about the Master, right? I mean, Buffy dusted him, we partied, what's the diff?"

"The, ah, diff is that he is now accompanied by Voldemort. We should be looking for any reference to magic being used to enhance the powers of vampires, of previous alliances between wizards and vampires, anything of that ilk. Yes?"

Willow had raised her hand.

"It might help if we knew the difference between the magic used by us and the magic used by you guys," she said, looking at Hermione and Harry.

"As I understand it," Hermione replied, after first looking to Remus and receiving a nod in reply, "wizarding magic draws on the inherent magical abilities of the witch or wizard. Only someone born with magical blood can perform this type of magic, and they can perform it with only a few words and the right wand movements, sometimes not even that."

"Our magic," Giles nodded, "is very, very different. Anyone can, theoretically, draw power from alternate dimensions and forces far beyond that which we can imagine. The greater the power we draw upon, however, the greater the drain upon us. It can be addictive if abused, and is dangerous to the user's mind and body. Wand magic can be tiring to the user, but is clean and otherwise unpolluting. _Yes?_"

Oz had raised his hand.

"I'm going to the doughnut shop," he said, as calmly as ever. "Do we want glazed or jelly?"

"Both, thank you," Giles replied, removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Now, can we actually do some work?"

For a time, there was only the sound of riffling pages and the steady breathing of the nine people in the room. When Oz returned with doughnuts and coffee, he picked up a heavy book and joined the silent reading, the calm of the room broken only by the occasional slurp of coffee and Xander's frantic attempts to stop a blob of jelly falling on his brand new shirt.

Lunchtime and dinnertime came and went without anyone discovering anything startling in the old books. Although Giles had been right in proclaiming that the diaries covered the years of Voldemort's rise and the Master's six-century killing spree, the Watchers and their Slayers had not dealt directly with either opponent and so information was scarce or non-existent. Before the doughnuts had been finished, Hermione had moved on to a new book, with Ginny and Willow not far behind. The others read at their own, varied, paces with Harry and Buffy the last to move on, each finishing their diary at the same time and reaching for the last book on Giles' coffee table.

"You take it," Buffy said, standing up and stretching. "I should go and patrol." Harry picked up the book and immediately turned to the first page, his gaze already intent on the scrawled writing.

Xander jumped up. "Want some company? We're out of doughnuts, so-"

He looked around, and caught Giles glaring at him.

"I'll stay here and continue reading about people who have no relation to what I should be looking for."

He sat back down, and Buffy grinned.

"Its okay, Xand," she said. "I'll just make a sweep through the main cemeteries. There weren't any wild dog attacks yesterday, were there?" she asked of Giles.

He waved a hand at the local paper. "All dead people had intact throats and were either extremely old and surrounded by many close loved ones, or entirely despicable and beyond all hope of redemption," he replied.

"See? Happy deaths," Buffy smiled. Harry frowned after her as she left.

* * *

Buffy occasionally enjoyed patrol. She could think of it as a pleasant evening stroll through a balmy Californian night, and she hardly had to fear muggers or kidnappers. Sunnydale had a busy police force, but other than the petty crime carried out by Buffy's fellow teens, their main chores were collecting the latest corpse to suffer 'neck rupture' or 'wild dog attack'. The denizens of the netherworlds had chased the criminal underworld out of Sunnydale and so patrol was generally quiet, unless something supernatural occurred.

Buffy was approaching an alleyway on the route towards Sunnydale's third largest cemetery when a figure came flying out of the alley at approximately the speed of an Indy car, splattering onto the sidewalk in a messy heap. She slipped into the shadows for a beat and watched as a tall, blonde figure in a long coat strode out of the alley and lifted the sprawled figure easily into the air.

"Last chance, mate," the blonde growled as Buffy sunk her head into her hands in recognition. "The Slayer. I hear your lot had a run in with her and her mates last night, so tell me how you survived and I'll let you survive meeting me."

Spike's opponent trembled in his grip, mouthing silently as he stared down at the English vampire. Finally, he managed "Wizards! There were wizards! With wands and everything! It was like _Dungeons & Dragons_!"

Spike looked at the other vampire in disgust, taking in its acne-scarred countenance and nerdy clothes, his gaze lingering on the bow tie and pocket protector. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the newly sired vampire aside, sending him crashing into the alley wall with a crunch that promised serious damage to his face.

Spike lit a cigarette and took a deep drag, before turning and staring into the shadows at Buffy.

"Come out, come out, whoever you are," he crooned in a slightly off-key tone. Buffy drew Mr. Pointy from its sheath in the small of her back and stepped into the light streaming weakly from the alley mouth.

"Slayer!" Spike vamped up and stared defiantly at Buffy.

"And here was me hoping we'd seen the last of you, Spike," Buffy said. "Do you want to finish this now? Only, I have house guests and it'd be rude for me to keep them waiting."

Spike's feral countenance twisted into a thoroughly evil smirk. "Yeah, so I hear. Nice bunch of wizards. 'Spose they went to Hogwarts, right? Me and Angelus looked at cracking that place once, but they had all kinds of wards up to keep the wrong sort out. Still, I guess I can have a go now, get a few wizards working for me."

"Actually," Buffy said, "they're here to help me kill vampires."

"Oh, I'm sure," Spike said, twisting sinuously in place, a habit he'd picked up from his ex-lover Drusilla when he felt he had the trump card to beat whatever lay in his opponent's hand. "Here to help you kill the Master, right? And his mate Voldemort?"

Buffy's eyes widened momentarily, but she adapted.

"Working for someone else now, Spike?" she asked. "I thought you were above that."

"They're going to give me another crack at you, Slayer," he grinned. "Way I figure, that's got to be worth a bit of grunt work."

"And you could have saved yourself the bother just by coming to my house," Buffy sighed. "Or are you too stupid to remember where I live?"

"Oh, I know that," Spike replied, the alley light glinting of his fangs. "So do they. And believe me, Slayer, Voldemort doesn't need anyone's permission to enter a house. Just ask your new playmate with the glasses."

He grinned, loving his newfound power. Buffy shivered in spite of the warmth of the evening around her.

"Okay, Spike," she took a step forward, and brought Mr. Pointy up. "Enough talking. I'll get you out of the way, and then we'll take care of your bosses."

"Nah," Spike grinned. "We've got a plan we're sticking to, Summers, and it doesn't involve me getting into a scrap with you in some dingy little alleyway. The Master wants to turn you, and he would not be happy if I snapped your neck before he got the chance."

Spike flicked his cigarette end at Buffy's face, and she gasped as the hot ash caught her just above her right eye. By the time she'd blinked away the momentary blindness, Spike was gone. Seething, and with her eye stinging, Buffy headed for the cemetery.

* * *

By the time she'd returned to Giles' apartment, Buffy's mood hadn't improved. Wherever she went, it seemed as though Spike had beaten her to it. A demon nest in one of the cemeteries had been firebombed, and the only surviving inhabitant passed away seconds after Buffy's arrival. She headed south, and found a vampire lying in a back alley. It was missing half a leg after Spike had slammed a steel security door on its knee. Just before it passed out from blood loss, Buffy was able to wring the information that Spike was looking for information on Slayers from it. She staked it as its eyes shut, feeling illogically guilty about dusting it while it lay unconscious.

The next few hours provided much the same story, over and over. Spike was conducting a one-man assault on the demons and vampires of Sunnydale, and again and again his victims would repeat that he was after information on Slayers. After rescuing Willy the bartender from his own meat freezer, she was able to decipher "Slayers, Slayer," through his chattering teeth before he passed out from the cold. She left him in the hands of a fire demon she knew was a regular of the bar and headed back to Giles'.

"Slayers?" Remus asked, breaking away from a conversation about lycanthropy with Oz. "He's looking for information on you?"

"Well, that doesn't make sense," Xander replied. "He already knows pretty much everything about us, Buffy especially."

"Voldemort would want the most up-to-date information available," Harry commented, staring moodily at Buffy. "He doesn't act unless he's sure of himself. He's not fought a Slayer, so he wants to know everything."

"In any case, the Master has always enjoyed knowing his victims intimately," Giles added, halfway up the stairs to his bedroom. He leaned over the banister rail, passing a book to Hermione. "And his resurrection will most likely only have made him want to know all the more about Buffy."

"Not just about Buffy, though, right?" Ron asked. "I mean, if he's looking for information on _Slayers_, then he must be going after the other Slayers out there."

"Ron," Hermione replied. "There's only one Slayer at a time. I know it's been a very tiring few days, but even you-"

"But Xander said that there was another Slayer here until a week or so ago," Ron smirked, clearly enjoying knowing something Hermione didn't. "How many of you are there, anyway?" he asked, turning to Buffy.

"Well, there's just me," she replied. "Me and Faith, anyway, and she's all kinds of comatose."

"But… If she was bitten by a vampire, would she wake up?" Ginny asked.

Everyone turned to face her, curled up in a corner of the apartment. "I mean, Xander told me that she was in a coma, but if she was turned, wouldn't the demon inside her wake up?"

"And be mad as hell at you to boot," Xander breathed, running a hand through his hair as he looked at Buffy. "Is Faith still at Sunnydale Memorial?"

"Yes," Giles replied. As Buffy and the others turned to look at him, he shifted uneasily. "The Council is keeping an eye on Faith in case she wakes up."

"They have anyone nearby who can stand up to Spike, the Master and this Voldemort guy?" Buffy asked.

"Probably not," Giles conceded.

"Right, here's what we're going to do" Harry said, speaking with an authority Buffy hadn't heard before. "Buffy, Remus and I will watch over this Faith's room. Oz, Ginny, I need you watching the entrance. Willow, Hermione, see what you can do about a tracking spell for Voldemort and the others if they show up. Ron, Mr. Giles, Xander, you're going to need to provide backup in case they get past us."

He looked around at them, meeting evenly the mixed gazes of the Sunnydale contingent.

"Check it out," Xander broke the silence. "We've got a spare leader in case Buffy ever breaks."

* * *

Spike stood before Voldemort and the Master, a wide, fanged grin as prominent on his face as the blood was prominent on his hands. The Master waved a hand regally from his position on a raised dais. Voldemort had spent some time altering the interior of the factory, and the formerly burnt shell was now at least livable, although it was overheated, in Spike's opinion. Voldemort, on the other hand seemed to revel in the warmth, which Spike felt was probably related to his snakelike appearance. Spike preferred a comfortable room without fiery chandeliers dangling from the walls, flaming torches bracketed on the walls and crackling blazes spotted liberally around the room. A vampire's body temperature was the same as the room temperature, and Spike was beginning to wish he'd removed his trenchcoat before entering into audience with his employers, but to do so now would be a visible sign of weakness of the type Spike wished to avoid. _The moment they think I've outlived my usefulness, I'll be dead, without the walking around this time. Better try and make sure they need to keep me around, then._

"There is a Slayer awaiting turning, then?" the Master mused, tapping his talons on his chin. He sat sprawled across one of the two chairs that were on the raised dais. Voldemort had the other chair, and sat in it upright and proud, his long, white fingers clasped around the pommels of the arms. Both were clothed entirely in black, the Master's light-starved features nearly as pale as Voldemort's own, their hairless heads gleaming dully in the firelight and the same sardonic sneer on their faces. Occasionally, Voldemort's forked tongue would flicker across the lipless edges of his mouth. Spike wondered if he could taste the fear in the air, the way the Master was said to be able to smell it.

Not that Spike was afraid. He had fought older and stronger vampires than the Master and un-lived to tell the tale, while wizards who thought that having a wand meant that they could tangle with vampires were two-a-penny in Europe. But the recruits that Spike had dragged from the bars of Sunnydale were cowering behind him, obviously intimidated by the legendary vampire before them. Of Voldemort, Spike thought, they had no fear and he wondered when the wizard would see fit to create fear in his new minions.

The Master snapped upright, his hands clenched on the arms of the chair, his body bent slightly, creating an air of someone about to spring forwards. One or two of Spike's recruits shuffled backwards slightly. Voldemort stared at them impassively.

"It was almost worth dying to come back to a world of such opportunity. You!" The Master pointed at a vampire who Spike thought might have been sired by Angelus barely a year before.

"Master?" the new vampire replied, the hint of quaver in her voice belying the calm air she was trying to portray. _Nice try,_ Spike thought. _Not that you could fool any of us, but you've got a little bravery in you. Time was, I'd have killed you for that. I wonder if the Master here'll do the same._

"Tell me, girl," the Master said, his voice soothing and hypnotic. Spike risked a sidelong glance at the girl, already under the Master's influence, and took refuge in his memory of the Sex Pistols first ever gig. It allowed him to resist the lure of the Master even as the girl and her fellow recruits fell into line. The Master's hypnotism was a useful trick, Spike knew, for it could instill order and bravery in even the weakest of drones, but his experiences with Drusilla's hypnotic powers had taught him that those under the 'fluence tended to be slow and easily tricked. Even as he watched on impassively, he wondered if the Master had thought his plan through to its conclusion. The Slayer would walk through the ragtag bunch of vampires before him without pausing.

"Go," the Master ordered. "Bring me more soldiers. Bring me an army of fighters with which to distract the Slayer as I take her successor and make her one of us."

Spike smirked as the vampires shuffled out, almost zombie-like in their gait. By the sheer weight of numbers alone, they would stand a chance against the Slayer and her allies now, although-

Voldemort spoke for the first time. "The vampires they create will not rise until tomorrow."

"Then we shall take this Faith tomorrow. If the Slayer suspects that we are moving on the hospital, she will defend it tonight, and tomorrow she will question her belief. Tomorrow we will strike, and if fortune smiles upon us then we shall find an undefended hospital, full of food to be eaten and even more recruits. If each vampire sires just two more," he smiled, his fangs protruding hungrily from his mouth, "then soon Sunnydale will be a town where a Slayer cannot hope to survive."

Voldemort stared unblinkingly at his co-conspirator, his red eyes glowing, Spike mused, like the hottest of coals burning in the hand of a pale young woman. Spike licked his lips as he remembered the time Drusilla and he had created the image for him to remember.

"Then allow me to make a small amendment to your plan," Voldemort said. Rising smoothly to his feet, he waved his wand at the departing vampires. Nothing much seemed to happen, other than the vampires standing a little more upright, and moving a little less slowly.

"Now they shall retain the nerve and courage you have created in them, and so will their offspring," Voldemort declared, sliding back into his seat, breathing a little heavily. "But they will no longer be dependent on your will, no longer subservient to you. They will think for themselves, and take orders from us both."

The Master didn't react for the barest fraction of a second; time enough for Spike to know that the bat-faced vampire had been caught out. Then a cool smile twisted his features still further. Spike looked at Voldemort.

_Nice trick,_ he thought. _But now the Master's watching you, mate. You'd better have a bit more than just hocus-pocus up your sleeve, or you're going to be blood on his hands and gristle in his teeth._

The Master continued his cold appraisal of Voldemort, even as the wizard turned to accept a whispered communiqué from Wormtail.

"My servant tells me that Potter, your Slayer and their followers have been seen moving towards the hospital," he told Spike and the Master. "It seems that fortune is indeed smiling upon us. They will watch the hospital all night, while your drones build us an army."

Their gazes met, and Spike took an involuntary step back. It seemed as though the temperature in the room had risen by ten degrees.

"Tomorrow, then, we shall fight, and after that, Potter will be a vampire under my command, and your Slayers will be vampires under your command, Nest. Something to look forward to, wouldn't you agree?"

The forked tongue flickered, the only sign of emotion on an otherwise impassive face.

_To be continued..._

Author's Note: I try and answer questions here, if possible. If nothing else I like to thank people for taking the time to review :-)

**Mutant9257:** Update Now ;-)

**Harry/Ginnyfan4ever:** Harry/Ginny? You know I'm a _huge_ fan of that 'ship. Will it appear in this story? You'll have to wait and see. There will be _one_ crossover pairing, though...

**Emba** Thanks! This whole story came from the idea I had of Voldemort using his resurrection spell to revive the Master and go after Buffy. As for other Harry/Buffy crossovers, I tried to do something different.

**Lisa:** I'm glad you're enjoying it. I've never written a BtVS fic before, but I'm a huge fan of the show. As my profile will reveal, though, this isn't exactly my first HP fic...

**Lauren: **The established couples are Ron/Hermione and Oz/Willow, of course. There'll definitely be a crossover 'ship, and Ron's going to help set it up, but more than that I won't say.

**Emma Barrows:** I'll try and update every week to ten days. This isn't a long story, though.

**Kinky Usagi:** Thanks! Wherever possible, I won't mess with timelines, although I've probably delayed Xander's departure on his road trip by a little while.

**zayra** Hope this was soon enough.

**kid** Not saying :-p

**bess** Done :-)

**bill** Hope you liked Spike's expanded appearance here. He's one of my favourite Buffy characters, along with Tara, so it was important that I got him as in character as possible.

**Buffy Fan35:** Here it is. A little wait 'til the next one now ;-)


	4. Chapter Three: Prophecies And Punch Ups

**_Chapter Three: Prophecies And Punch Ups_**

Buffy paced the room for the thirteenth time that hour.

"So, while we're waiting, why not tell me about this prophecy you mentioned." She looked up at Harry and Remus.

"Not much to say," Harry shrugged. "We've got a Seer on our side. She had a vision. She saw that there was going to be a need for the Chosen Ones to unite against common foes. There was a lot of cryptic rubbish that Hermione and Professor Dumbledore and a bunch of other people worked through, but it came down to us coming to Sunnydale and working with you."

"Well, not that I don't appreciate the assist, but did you have any plans for what happens when Voldemort, the Master and Spike walk in here?"

Harry's eyes hardened, and fingers flexed and curled as though around an imaginary wand.

"Yeah, I do. I'll kill Voldemort, you kill the Master and Remus will kill Spike. I think that's an even distribution of our assets."

"Well, not that that doesn't sound really good and all, but did you consider that we might want something a little more detailed?" Buffy asked. "Should we start on the count of three, just to make it simpler?"

Harry tilted his head slightly, but his face remained almost expressionless. "Voldemort can read my mind. If I have a plan, he'll know it. If I'm going to beat him, I can't give him any advantages. If you want to arrange something with Remus, be my guest."

He turned away from her, and focused his gaze on the door to Faith's room. Anything wanting to enter would have to come through the door, giving the three of them something easy to aim at.

_I hope,_ Buffy sighed. She crossed the room to Faith's bed, where the dark-haired Slayer lay pale and small-looking, hooked up to monitors and a drip, lacking the unquenchable vitality that had made her almost unbeatable.

_Almost,_ Buffy thought, her gaze settling on the sheet that covered Faith's stomach. Even with a knife embedded deep in her gut, Faith had remained conscious long enough to deny Buffy her blood. Buffy's hands flexed, as Harry's had, the fingers curling to fit the handle of the knife, the muscles tensing as they remembered the thrust that had so nearly taken Faith's life.

Buffy remembered the pure anger that had driven her in that fight, the fear of losing Angel. She had lost him anyway. He was in Los Angeles now, seeking redemption away from the temptation that Buffy represented. A small part of Buffy wondered how she would make it through the next year without him, wondering how much more pain it would cause if she sought him out, tried to convince him to give them another try.

She shook her head. He had gone, and his reasoning had been sound. They lived in different worlds, and if they couldn't be together then being around one another was the worst kind of torture. Buffy knew, logically, that the pain would fade in time. In the meantime, she would simply do her best to inflict it on any vampire, demon or monster that crossed her path.

The walkie-talkie at her hip crackled. "Buffy?"

"Go ahead, Oz," she replied, raising the handset to her mouth.

"We've just seen another person going in with a neck wound. Sure are a lot of them tonight."

Buffy frowned. Oz and Ginny had reported a steady stream of people arriving at the hospital with vampire attack symptoms, and the numbers had risen sharply in the last hour.

She looked over the handset at Remus and Harry.

"I think we're in the wrong place," Remus commented. "Deliberately or not, we've been misled. The vampires are out on the streets tonight."

Buffy nodded. "Ginny, you stay here. Stay out of trouble. Oz, meet us by your van. Giles, you and the others meet us at the back entrance. We've been suckered, and we need to get out on the streets."

"Understood," Giles replied, his voice familiar and soothing even over the crackly radio.

"You're going?" Harry asked, as Buffy lowered the handset.

"You're not?"

"What about Faith?" he gestured at her unmoving form.

"I don't think they're coming tonight," Remus said calmly, imposing himself between Buffy and Harry. "We need to help the people out there, Harry."

"Someone should stay here," Harry persisted. "Someone strong enough to hold Voldemort and the Master."

"Fine," Buffy snapped. "You stay here, we'll go and save some lives."

She pushed roughly past the two men and strode into the corridor, not looking back as she made her way down the stairs to the back door. She found the others waiting for her silently. The Sunnydale natives looked a little jittery, as always before a big fight. Ron and Hermione were obviously calmer, but when they realised that Buffy was alone, they appeared more uncertain.

"Where's Harry?" Ron asked.

"He's not coming," Buffy said, as neutrally as she could manage. Willow, she was sure, could pick up on the tension in her voice.

"Harry feels that someone should remain here and guard Faith," Remus said calmly, appearing from behind Buffy silently. "I am inclined to agree with him. I feel we are more than capable of handling these vampires, even without him. Ginny will continue to watch the entrance, in case there is an attack."

Giles nodded, which seemed to settle the matter for Xander and Willow. The group headed for Oz's van and Giles' car, and set off for the centre of town.

* * *

"Glorious!" The Master exulted, as the sun rose over downtown Sunnydale. "Even with the Slayer's interference, our first recruits will all be sires a dozen times over by nightfall. And then the Slayer shall interfere no more, unless we order her, of course."

Voldemort rose from his chair a little unevenly. His pale face betrayed no hint of unease or pain, but his stance wavered a little. Spike watched his left hand flutter fractionally upwards, as though to touch his injured chest, but he stopped it almost before it had begun. But Spike had seen it, and he wondered if the Master had noticed his opponent's - for Spike had ceased thinking of them as allies shortly after Voldemort had incinerated one of the Master's most effective vampires for allowing a human to escape - momentary weakness.

Voldemort's lipless mouth split open and he looked evenly at the Master.

"We should decide now which one of us gets which Slayer," Voldemort declared. "I am loath to accede to your suggestion that we waste time and resources attacking the hospital now when we could more easily take it once the Summers girl and Potter are ours."

"From what I heard of you and your reign of terror from your ratty servant," the Master replied, "I thought that you understood the necessities of psychological warfare. Taking this Faith girl will break Summers. Knowing she has to fight an opponent with the strength and speed of a vampire in addition to that of a Slayer… She will be unable to think clearly. She will lose."

"The Slayer, Potter and their allies will massacre your brood of newly sired vampires," Voldemort declared. "The attack is folly, a waste of resources and power that could be replaced by a direct attack on them when they are unawares."

Spike turned away, leaving the two leaders to argue amongst themselves. He licked tentatively at the cut on his lip, the legacy of going toe-to-toe with one of the wizards the night before, a tall man with flaming red-hair and a punch like a shotgun blast. He had narrowly avoided one of the wizard's conjured stakes before their brief entanglement, and suspected that Voldemort had a point. Still, those who survived the attack would likely be strong and useful vampires, and they would thrive on the knowledge that they had survived a fight with a Slayer. Not many vampires could claim that, although the weight of numbers in this case - Spike estimated that there would be over sixty vampires rising that night - would count in their favour.

There was a hissed incantation, and Spike turned in time to see one of his recruits look down in surprise as a stake materialised in the centre of his chest. Two more gasped as the first exploded into dust, these two severely hampered by the stakes protruding from their shoulders.

"Your aim is off, wizard," the Master snarled, taking a step towards Voldemort.

"On the contrary, my aim is excellent," Voldemort replied, his mouth twisting into a mockery of a smile. He waved his wand, and six thin wooden stakes appeared along the length of the Master's right forearm. The Master raised his arm in surprise, staring at the even half-dozen spikes that were stabbed clean through his arm. Blood dripped slowly from the wounds, as though it had been so long since it last flowed that it had forgotten exactly what it was supposed to do.

"Have I succeeded in making my point?" Voldemort asked, before turning away from the stricken vampire.

The Master growled, a guttural sound that seemed to shake the room around him. "Face me, Voldemort," he snapped.

The wizard turned slowly, dark red eyes meeting the Master's narrow gaze.

"Magic or not, we both know that if I were to attack you now I would snap your neck in two before you could blink," the Master snarled. "I would drink your blood and take over the world by myself. And yet you resurrected me, brought me back from Hell itself. My gratitude grows thin, but it holds, for now. Pray for your own sake that I continue to acknowledge your usefulness to the plan long enough for you to walk out of here alive."

Spike watched the two of them posturing. He supposed that it was inevitable that if two of the most evil creatures on the face of the earth were to unite, there would be friction. They both wanted everything, after all, and their dreams of world domination were incompatible.

_God alone knows what'll happen if these two actually win. All out war between the wizards and us vampires, I suppose. Should be fun, plenty of mess, and there's a lot more vamps around than wand-wavers, but they do have a nasty knack of being good at killing us. And these two are as likely to kill me as reward me once they're done. Oh well, once more into the breach and all that._

Spike cleared his throat.

"Not to interrupt the riveting display or anything," he said, smirking at a blonde female vamp that'd caught his eye earlier. "But shouldn't we be making plans for tonight and stuff? I mean, I know we're going after the second Slayer, but how? And do you really think they won't still be guarding her? We're going to have to go in hard and fast if we don't want to end up as ashes, that's all there is to it."

"You fancy yourself as a strategist?" the Master asked. "Well, see if you approve of our plan, then. We go in, Reptile Boy here tangles with the wizards, I turn the sleeping Slayer and you and some of your feistier colleagues wreak merry havoc among the Summers girl and her friends."

"Right, fine, well that's that sorted then," Spike grinned, formulating his own plans behind his ridged forehead. "If that's all, I'll go get a bit of kip. Wouldn't do to be falling asleep while I tangle with the Slayer tonight."

* * *

The door to the Summers house opened slowly, and a tired looking figure slouched into the hallway.

"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed, ignoring the long cut on her leg to jump to her feet and welcome her friend.

"Hey," he replied, moving into the living room and sinking onto the sofa. "What happened last night?"

"We dusted some vamps, and got our asses handed to us on a plate," Buffy replied, moving an icepack off her jaw for a moment.

"Coulda used a little help out there," Xander added, as Ginny focussed an orange beam from her wandtip on his wrist. "There were a lot of vamps."

"Someone had to watch Faith," Harry sighed, his eyes flickering closed. Before anyone could reply, his chest began to rise and fall slowly. He was clearly asleep.

"Great. At least someone'll be rested for tonight," Xander groused. "Hey!"

"Sorry," Ginny replied. "Harry was just doing what he thought was best."

"Yeah, but he needs to work with us," Buffy commented. "He can't just go off and do things by himself and expect it to work- What?"

She looked at the wizards, who had exchanged a very pointed look at this.

"Thing is, Harry can," Ron said, wrapping a bandage around his split knuckles. "We just slow him down. He's damn near invincible, and while it would have been good if he'd been out there with us last night, all that vampire activity _could_ have been a feint."

"Is he really that good?" Willow asked, looking curiously at Harry. "He looks kinda, well, not that good."

"And Buffy looks like a girl who I might chat up in a pub one night," Ron retorted. "Trust me. Once you see Harry in action, you'll get what I mean."

"Yeah, Will," Xander added. "I mean, look at Oz. You'd never guess that he's really a demon with the guitar, right?"

Willow looked at her dyed-haired, painted-fingernails, Hendrix t-shirt wearing boyfriend, and shrugged.

"I prefer just 'pretty good with a guitar'," Oz commented. "Being a demon round here? People might try and hunt me. Even more than they already do."

Remus and Joyce entered, carrying bandages and bowls of hot water. Willow took a strip of bandage to wind around Buffy's arm while Hermione began to clean her cut.

"So, are we in danger?" Joyce asked, looking at the wounded teenagers who filled her front room. "Mr. Giles says we'll be okay here, but Mr. Lupin..."

"Call me Remus, please, Joyce," Remus interrupted as he brushed Ginny's hair away from the cut on her shoulder.

"Well, okay," Joyce replied, smiling shyly at the grey-haired man. Buffy rolled her eyes.

"I must admit, Joyce," Remus said, as he cleaned Ginny's cut. "You are in some danger. But not, I think, any more than any one else in town. You're not located very near to where we think the fighting will be, so you should be okay, but if you like someone can stay here and keep an eye on the place."

"Oh, I wouldn't want to be a burden," Joyce said. "If you say it's safe, then…"

"No, it'd be a good idea for someone to stay here," Ron said, grinning widely. "And I think Remus should stay, don't you, Buffy?"

Buffy scowled at the mock-serious redhead. "Sure. Whatever," she bit out, the icepack against her jaw somewhat muffling the sarcasm.

Ron grinned. Joyce beamed.

The living room fell into near-silence as the occupants tended to their wounds and tried to prepare themselves for the prospect of another night of heavy fighting. After a few hours in which the big excitement had been an arm wrestling contest between Ron and Xander, Harry sat bolt upright, hands rising for a second before he stopped them. He screwed his closed eyes more tightly shut, and breathed heavily for several seconds, before exhaling deeply and falling back onto the sofa.

"What time is it?" Harry asked.

"About two," Buffy replied, entering the living room and rotating her shoulder gingerly.

"Right. Where is everyone?" Harry asked.

"Training in the basement. Well, except for mom and Remus. They're outside, cutting flowers for the vases," Buffy said, with a roll of her eyes.

"Right," Harry blinked. "What happened to your shoulder?"

"Ron," Buffy replied.

"Ron?"

"And Xander. They got a little carried away. Ginny just came down, said you were waking up. She's taking care of the two of them for me."

The ghost of a smile crossed Harry's face.

"How'd you get hurt, then?" he asked.

"They crashed into me from behind and I fell against the wall. It's only a bump, and I heal fast."

"Right," Harry said. "Will you be okay by tonight?"

"Yeah, sure. Did you hear any of what we've decided for tonight?"

Harry shook his head.

"We're going back to the hospital. One team to guard Faith, one team to stake the vampires if they rise," she told him.

"Right. Good," Harry replied. "What're the teams?"

"You, me and Ron are guarding Faith, Xander and Hermione to back us up. Willow, Ginny, Oz and Giles will go after the vamps. Ron says he wants another go at Spike. Apparently they tussled last night."

"What about Remus?"

"Staying here. To guard my mom," Buffy sighed.

Harry frowned. "Great."

"Hey, not loving the idea either," Buffy pointed out. "My mom making icky-eyes at British guys brings me out in a bad case of the 'Eeewws', with a side order of 'Ick' for good measure."

She paused as Harry stared at her blankly, then forged onwards. "But the Master and Spike both know where I live, and I'd prefer if someone were here to keep an eye on her, just in case we're wrong about the hospital."

"Okay," Harry relented. "But we're not wrong about the hospital. Voldemort's so excited about tonight that I can nearly taste it. It's what woke me up, my scar burning. I learned how to control the way he affects me, but I can't stop his thoughts leaking into my head. He's impatient, angry, and he's out for blood."

"Good," Giles said, stepping into the living room and wiping his hands on a towel. A damp patch on his chest showed how hard he had been working on training. "If he's as worked up as you say, he'll make mistakes, he'll be sloppy."

"Not Voldemort," Harry said. "He'll just take it out on anyone who gets in his way. It's time to end this. Tonight." He looked at Buffy. "I'm sorry he's on your ground, and I don't want to push you around, but you have to stay out of my way tonight. If Voldemort appears, leave him to me, got it?"

Buffy stared into Harry's emerald eyes, which now seemed as hard as the stone whose hue they shared.

"Voldemort's yours," she replied. "But you sound so resigned. I thought you thought you were going to beat him."

"He keeps escaping," Harry sighed, sinking back into his seat. "And I'm beginning to wonder if maybe there's a reason. Before I was born, there was a prophecy made about me and Voldemort-"

"Another prophecy? You guys sure have a lot of the things," Buffy commented.

"This one said that neither Voldemort nor I can live while the other lives," Harry said. "And it was right. I don't have a life, I _can't_ have a life. Not while he's still here. And from what our spies have told us, he's been so obsessed with killing me that he's not thinking straight."

"Was there more to the prophecy?" Giles asked.

"It's supposed to mean that one of us has to die, that we'll fight and that to finally beat him that I'll have to kill him," Harry looked up at Buffy. "But it could work the other way, too. Maybe he'll kill me. He's escaped twice, now. The momentum is on his side. I might not survive tonight."

"Hey, I've heard a lot of prophecies," Buffy said, squatting in front of him. "Made a few of my own. Just because they say one thing, doesn't mean that that's it. I mean, there was a prophecy that I'd die when I was sixteen."

"Yes, and you died," Harry said. "The Watcher's Council let Dumbledore borrow your Diary," he added, looking up at Giles.

"Oh," Giles replied.

"But, see, that proves my point," Buffy replied. "I died, and the prophecy was fulfilled, but Xander brought me back to life."

"So I should take Xander along when I fight Voldemort?" Harry asked.

"No, I-" Buffy stopped, and frowned. "I'm just trying to help."

"Then stay out of my way tonight," Harry said. "If Voldemort does kill me, you're probably our next best hope, and I don't want you dying because you tried to help me."

Buffy looked up at Giles, but the Watcher just shrugged and left the living room.

"Okay," Buffy agreed, quietly. "But you're not going to die."

"I hope you're right."

_To be continued..._

**Harry/Ginnyfan4ever:** Heheh. Spot on. Remus and Joyce, sitting in a tree...

**zayra** More goodies!

**angelus**** cado:** Glad to hear you're enjoying the story

**Kinky Usagi:** Well, it's fun to mess with things, and vampire Faith would totally kick ass... You'll have to wait and see ;-)

**phoenix83ad:** Who will betray who? Hmmm, maybe they won't live long enough to betray one another or maybe they'll work in beautiful tandem and rule the world. As for Tara, sorry, but there wasn't room for her here. I did consider doing a post s.5 follow-up where Harry etc. show up for Buffy's funeral, but it would be very maudlin and probably not worth doing, just to get Tara and Hermione talking :-(

**Emba** Glad you like the way I'm writing people here :-)

**lisa** No major smoochies here, regardless of what pairings I put together.

**kid**By now, you may be able to guess what the eventual pairings will be. Glad you're liking Spike :-)

**Emena**They got there eventually, but it won't be happening here. Spike does get the chance to get up close and personal with both Buffy and Hermione, though ;-)

**Harry Foureyes:** Plenty of action to come, but Spike's pure evil, which is when he's at his most fun. He's going to do some serious damage before the story's done. Changing sides? Well, not quite, but let's just say that he's not the loyalist of people...


	5. Chapter Four: Test Of Faith

**_Chapter Four: Test Of Faith_**

Spike stalked the corridors, leading Voldemort, the Master, and their team through Sunnydale Memorial. This was his favourite part. The kill was in the offing, the victim was unprepared, and all it would take would be a swift strike.

_The kill is good, but the anticipation... Oh, that's something _else_! And to kill a Slayer... I remember how good the others were._

Spike smirked, his fangs glinting faintly in the darkened hallway. He held up a hand, and the almost silence of their movements fell into absolute silence. There weren't even the sounds of breathing. Apparently Voldemort had little need of breath. Spike's smile widened as he laid one hand on the handle of the unconscious Slayer's room -

- and jerked backwards as a crossbow bolt shattered the glass and whipped across his chest, thudding into the plasterboard wall opposite.

Spike hesitated for a second, and then burst through the door.

* * *

Buffy frowned as the shadow on the other side of the glass failed to disappear. Ron and Harry watched in stony silence, wands raised. Buffy set the crossbow on Faith's bed and drew a stake.

Then Spike burst through the door, and all semblance of order disappeared.

The blonde vampire made a bee-line for Buffy, but was tackled halfway across the room by Ron, whose lunge took Spike in the chest. They crashed into the wall, and fell, for a second stunned by the impact.

Behind Spike came a wave of vampires, and for a second Buffy felt her stomach drop. The numbers went far beyond those counted the night before. How many had died?

"Hello, Slayer."

And then Buffy forgot everything as the Master stepped into the room.

* * *

"Potter."

A single word, and then Harry was in motion. Framed in the doorway was Voldemort, black robe hanging loosely about his thin, skeletal frame. Harry waved his wand, a Blasting spell erupting from the tip. But a vampire passed in front of Voldemort on its way into the room, and the spell spent itself on the vampire's head. The vampire exploded into ash, and as more of its brethren piled into the room, Voldemort's lipless mouth split into a mockery of a smile. Raising his wand, he waved it in Harry's direction, and Harry, penned in on all sides by the flood of vampires, had to drop to the ground to avoid the scarlet hex. As he fell, another vampire exploded into dust, and Harry felt the swell of vampires press in on all sides. Hitting the ground with a jolt, he looked up into a fearsome circle of pointed teeth and hungry, pitiless eyes.

* * *

Spike rose smoothly to his feet, hands clasped around his attacker's neck. With barely a grunt of effort, he hoisted the young man into the air, and threw him across the room. He crashed through the window and into the corridor beyond, dropping limply to the ground, the falling glass the only sound as the tableau before him paused for a moment.

"Buffy? Buffy, what's happening?"

Spike strode forward, the vampires parting before him as though he were Moses parting the Red Sea. The Slayer stood before him, looking defiant as ever, but knowing, he could tell, that this was to be her last stand.

"Well, Buffy?" Spike said, gesturing at the radio at Buffy's hip. "Aren't you going to talk to the nice Watcher?"

She glared at him, and swung. Spike grabbed her wrist mid-strike, and twisted. The satisfying feel of Buffy's bones grinding together under his fingers was met by the even more satisfying sound of the pained gasp escaping her throat. He smiled, and shoved her forward, sending her crashing headfirst into the monitoring equipment. Reaching down, he plucked the radio from her belt. With one foot resting heavily on the Slayer's throat, he thumbed the transmit key.

"Yes, go ahead?"

"Harry? Is that you? Where's Buffy?"

"Buffy's indisposed at the moment," Spike smirked, arching his eyebrows at some appreciatively smiling vampires in the corner of the room.

"Well, that doesn't matter. Listen, it's a trap. We made it to the mortuary, but there were only two or three vampires here. We staked them, but then we got ambushed. We nearly made it out, but we heard one of our attackers say-"

"-that Spike, Voldemort and the Master were leading an undead army into battle with the others? Yes, Rupert, I think that they _may_ have noticed."

There was a pause. The Master smiled, acknowledging Spike's arrogance.

"Spike?" Giles voice was hard, angry.

"Got it in one, Watcher-boy," Spike crooned. "Coming to join the party? We were going to kill Buffy and the other one immediately, but it'd be so much more fun to have their own bloody Watcher watching while I rip their throats out."

"Buffy! Hold on, we-"

Spike crushed the radio, and let the shards of plastic and metal shower down onto Buffy's face. She screwed up her features to protect herself, and flailed at Spike's leg ineffectually.

"Don't kill her. Yet," the Master ordered. He walked over to the bed where Faith lay, quiet and still.

"Ahhh, perfection," the Master sighed, leaning close to the dark-haired girl. "I can feel the darkness inside her. She is going to be such fun to have around. "

"Yeah, right. Now, are we going to eat them, or what?" Spike asked.

The Master looked up, and sighed. "Very well. I suppose you want the Summers girl?"

"Yeah," Spike grinned. "Time for a bit of payback."

Reaching down, he dragged Buffy up into the air as easily as he had done with Ron before her. Vamping up, he smashed her against the wall, knocking the wind from her and stunning her momentarily. His lips drew back, exposing the jagged teeth that had drained Slayer blood before. Leaning in, the tips of his teeth brushed the skin of Buffy's neck.

Then he bit down, and knew no more.

* * *

Ron stood in the doorway of the room, wand drawn and pointed at the Master, having stunned both him and Spike in one easy move. He dived into the pile of vampires between him and Faith's bed, and by tooth, nail and wand, managed to dig a hole in the pile down to where Harry lay, curled up with his hands around his neck.

"Harry!"

Harry looked up, green eyes glimmering in the darkness.

Ron managed to get free just in time.

Sort of.

* * *

Harry's wand glowed, illuminating the pile of vampires on top of him. Instinctively as he fell, he had curled into a protective ball. The impact had knocked the wind from him, and the press of vampires had trapped him in place. As he gathered his senses, he focused on appropriate spells for freeing himself. And then Ron had given him room to move.

"_Ha-Do-Ken!_"

The vampires, maybe a dozen of them, were thrown into the air by the blast. Harry pushed himself to his feet and looked up.

"Ron?"

Voldemort stood in front of Harry, wand drawn, the wandtip glowing as he suspended Ron's body a few inches above the ground.

"Put down your wand, Harry, and I'll let your friend live."

"I don't believe you," Harry snarled, his eyes locked on Voldemort's.

There was a snapping sound, and one of Ron's fingers bent too far backwards.

"That could have been his neck, but that would be too easy. I don't want any excuses, Potter. With him dead, you could blame his loss for your inevitable defeat. If you survived, that is. But I won't kill him. I want everyone to know that you died because I am the greater wizard, because your survival has been down to luck alone."

"I put a sword through your chest," Harry replied, holding Voldemort's gaze unblinkingly.

"Indeed. You have been _very_ lucky. And to think, when I kill you tonight, you will die knowing that I am still not fully healed from our last encounter. Imagine that. The mighty Harry Potter, defeated by an opponent with a gaping hole in his chest," Voldemort replied. The next of Ron's fingers folded back as easily as if it had been deboned. Harry could see sweat pouring down his unconscious friend's face. "Not that I am the only one whose injuries you've caused."

A bone in the third finger cracked, and punctured the flesh around it. It jutted sharply into the open air.

Harry's wand clattered to the ground.

The vampires around the room stepped forward as one, but Voldemort raised his hand, even as he released Ron from the levitation spell. Harry winced as his friend crashed to the ground.

"Now, Harry, the time has come," Voldemort breathed, forked tongue flickering across the edges of his mouth.

"Well, let's do it then," Harry replied.

"_Avada__ K-_"

Voldemort paused, the point of the sword in Harry's hand held against the skin of his jaw. The green glow at the tip of his wand faded.

"It's over," Harry said, and pushed.

Voldemort moved aside, and Harry's lunge met thin air.

"Fast, Potter, but I am faster. _Stupefy!_"

Harry twisted, but the spell still caught him in the side. He was thrown up and backwards, crashing through what little remained of the window that Ron had smashed through a few minutes beforehand.

Voldemort stared around him at the silent, sullen vamps who had so far been deprived of their expected feeding frenzy.

"Hold here until one of those two awakens," he waved a long, pale hand carelessly at Spike and the Master. "I have business to attend to."

Robes swishing about him, he glided from the room.

* * *

Buffy had watched the exchange in silence, knowing her powers would be of little help against Voldemort. She wished for reinforcements, but knew that if they were coming, they'd be there already. Presumably, there were more vamps within the hospital on top of the nearly three-dozen who had crowded into the not very large room.

Despite the situation, Buffy smiled. All alone, with that many enemies to fight? It was the sort of situation that Faith would have relished. It was the sort of situation that, if Buffy was honest with herself, a little part of her relished as well.

She pushed herself to her feet, the movement drawing the gaze of every conscious vampire in the room.

"You guys," she announced, drawing Mr. Pointy from the sheath at her back, "are just going to have to get in line."

* * *

Unnoticed, Spike crawled through the mass of vampires who were jostling to get at the Slayer. His ribs ached where the redhead had crashed into him, but he was intent on one thing, draining a Slayer.

Voldemort was gone, hunting the Potter brat. The Slayer was being kept busy by the Master's drones; the Master himself lay unconscious at the foot of the second Slayer's bed. It was clear to Spike that all he had to do was get to the bedside, and he would be able to drink freely.

_Didn't get to taste that Slayer in New York. Figure I'm owed a free go._

He clawed his way across the floor, fangs almost throbbing in his mouth as he savoured the anticipation. The Slayer in China had been sweet and spicy, the New York Slayer had smelt crisp when he'd spilled her blood on the streets. Spike looked up at Faith. He had a feeling she'd taste smoky.

He reached up to grab the bedframe, or tried to. His hand was stuck to the floor. He tugged at it.

"Bloody hell! Do they not even wipe the floors?"

Then he felt the tingle in the air around him, and sagged on his frozen limbs. Looking back over his shoulder, he had just under a second to try and dodge before the redhead's boot connected with his face.

* * *

Giles stood back to back with Willow. Both wielded short swords amidst the chaos. Ginny and Oz were somewhere on the other side of the room, Giles hoped, but he had seen neither hide nor hair of the pair for several minutes. He ducked under a vampire's lunge, thrusting up with his blade and driving the point home into the vampire's stomach.

The vamp barely blinked, although it did snarl in anger as it backhanded the Watcher across the face. Giles let go of the sword as he fell backwards, crashing heavily into one of the mortuary tables, and then to the ground. He watched helplessly as the vampire lunged, sword and all, at Willow.

"_Stupefy!_"

The sharp cry was one of the most welcome sounds Giles had ever heard. The Stunning spell crashed into the vampire; with the unexpected side effect of twisting the sword up into its chest and ripping open the torso.

Willow looked over her shoulder in surprise, having completely failed to notice the vampire. She did notice Giles, sprawled on the floor, but he waved her off.

"Help Ginny," he ordered.

"Ginny?" Willow wondered, turning as the vampires paused to regroup. Her eyes widened as she recognised the other red-haired girl, her pale face now completely white as blood spilled freely from the reopened wound on her shoulder. Her right hand was clamped over the wound, her wand held unsteadily in her left hand, but even as Willow watched, a blast of flame flared from the wandtip and engulfed the vampire Giles had stabbed, incinerating what was left of the undead creature.

Giles' sword clattered to the floor, and was swept up by Oz. Willow let out a small sigh of relief at the sight of him, although his orange hair was matted with blood and the left side of his face was turning deep purple from some unknown blow.

The vampires held their position, snapping and snarling like chained dogs, coming no closer to Ginny's wand or Oz's twin blades than was absolutely necessary to contrive a little intimidation.

Ginny leaned against one of the mortuary tables. Ostensibly, it was a casual movement. Ginny suspected that the young witch needed the support, although the wand barely wavered in her grip.

Willow looked about the room, trying to think of a way of helping her friends. She had no weapon, no Slayer strength or magic wand.

_But who needs a wand?_

The vampires were gathered in front of the body drawers from which they had emerged. Willow was trying to ignore the fact that they were all naked, focusing on anything else, even their teeth and cold, lifeless eyes.

Her gaze settled on the cold, frosted air spilling from the chilled drawers. A small smile played across her lips.

"Oz, Ginny, get down!" she ordered, as Giles clambered to his feet behind her.

Ginny and Oz dropped instinctively, the vampires confused by their actions.

"Gaia, grant your daughter this gift, that change shall come upon the elements in this room," Willow began. "Fire from ice, ash from flesh, light from the dark!"

Giles tackled her, and they crashed to the ground, sliding beneath a gurney as the room shook around hem and the lights flickered, one by one, before dying and plunging the room into blackness.

The body drawers rattled in the wall. Slowly, the vampires turned to face them.

And then, as one, each of the drawers erupted into flame as the cool air spilling from them ignited.

The vampires screamed as they caught alight, their cries turning to agonized wails as they exploded into ash.

The lights flickered, before lighting up once more.

"Yes, well," Giles coughed, brushing expired vampire ash from his jacket as he stood up. "Nicely done, Willow. A little more warning, next time, please?"

Oz took Willow's hand in his and helped her stand upright, supporting her as her legs trembled under her. "Cool," he said.

Willow smiled.

"Now, I wonder what the others are up to?" Giles mused as he dug a bandage from his bag and skillfully applied it to Ginny's wound. "Buffy? Can you hear me?" he said into his radio. There was a crackle of static, and no reply. "Hermione? Xander?"

"Go ahead, Giles," Xander's reply came.

"We've taken care of the vampires in the mortuary, but some got out. Where are you?"

"Third floor. Do you want us to come down?"

"No, go and help Buffy and the others. We've lost contact."

"Right, right. We'll just go and face up to this Voldemort, then," Xander replied, his sigh audible over the crackle of the radio. "See you soon. I hope."

* * *

Harry staggered backwards, reflexively countering curse after hex after jinx as they fired from Voldemort's wand. The tall wizard came on implacably, red eyes glowing in the light of the spells as they leapt forward at his command. Harry searched for a gap, a moment, a split-second where Voldemort's aura of invincibility seemed breachable, but his foe exuded the total self-confidence that he had until the two of them had fought to draw on a lonely moor in Finland almost two years before.

Voldemort smirked, drew back his wand, and cast a memory charm in Harry's direction. Harry blocked it easily, but barely saw the second hex, a burning hex that lit his shirt ablaze. Magical in nature, the fire quickly scorched Harry's skin, and his nose wrinkled in disgust as the smell of cooking meat reached it.

Knowing that nothing could put out the mystical flames, Harry instead lunged at Voldemort, who had paused his assault to savour Harry's pain. Harry's attack bore the pale wizard to the ground, and Harry struck instinctively, pressing his burning hand onto Voldemort's throat for a second, and then grabbing Voldemort's face and driving the back of his head into the parquet floor over and over again.

Slowly, the flame died, and Harry looked down at Voldemort's charred face. Something black oozed across the floor from underneath the wizard's white skull, and Harry sank back on his haunches.

_It's over. Finally. He's-_

"Dead? Hardly, Potter. _Accelerus_"

The spell caught Harry in the chest and he was thrown backwards, head snapping forwards as his body accelerated near instantaneously to forty miles per hour down the hospital corridor.

* * *

Ron brought his leg back with a slight sigh of satisfaction. The bleached blonde vampire - Spike, Willow had told him - was firmly stuck to the floor. He knew from experience that a Sticking charm would hold for perhaps a minute, if no pressure was exerted on the stuck-down object.

He kicked Spike in the ribs as hard as he could. The vampire rolled free, the tearing sound as his hands parted company with their uppermost layer of skin almost masked by the bellow of pain Spike let out.

Ron watched warily, knowing that Spike had the reputation of actually thinking with his brain occasionally, rather than just his teeth. The vampire was over a hundred years old, and hadn't lived so long without being wily, cunning, and-

* * *

-Spike erupted upwards from the floor, catching the red-head under the chin with his forearm. The man's mouth shut with a click as his teeth snapped together, and they tumbled backwards across the floor. Spike heard the wail of a vampire exploding into dust on the other side of the room, but his attention was fixed on his opponent. He batted aside an attempt from the man to plunge his wand into Spike's chest, instead grabbing the man's wrist and plunging his fangs into the vein.

* * *

Harry crashed to the ground a few feet shy of the corridor wall as the spell burnt itself out. His momentum carried him at a much reduced pace into the wall, which buckled slightly, but stopped Harry's progress. He sucked in deep, heaving breaths as he watched Voldemort calmly approach, black blood now glinting on his neck in the hospital's fluorescent lighting. He sneered down at Harry, and brought his wand up.

"_Confundus_"

Voldemort paused for a second as Harry's spell hit him between the eyes. It was enough for Harry to grab the metal bar above his head and haul himself to his feet, but as he tried to run, his knee buckled beneath him and he toppled over. Flinging out his hands to catch himself, he belatedly felt the pain in his knee. He supposed that it had been twisted when he had been thrown backwards by Voldemort's spell, but had no time for further diagnosis as Voldemort turned smoothly in place and glared down at him.

"I am almost ashamed on your behalf, Potter," he declared. "Your last attack on me, an attempt to befuddle my mind. How low you have fallen."

He raised his wand once more.

"_Os fragmentum!_"

* * *

Ron's eyes widened in shock, but years of instincts forged through training alongside Harry and the others took over, and he bought his knee up sharply.

* * *

Buffy pivoted in place, stake plunging, plunging, plunging as three vampires attempted to move in at once. She grunted with exertion. Alone and unaided, she had put a dent in their numbers, but the vampires were mindlessly relentless. Worse, they were showing signs of adapting. Where three had moved forward from their massed ranks, now five came forward.

Buffy barely blinked. She didn't have time.

* * *

Spike's head snapped back, blood trailing from his pointed teeth as he snarled in pain. He yearned to curl up, to protect himself.

_And if I do that, then the bastard'll kill me, and I'll be damned if some snot-nosed school kid is going to be the death of me._

Spike staggered to his feet and gingerly stepped backwards. Looking over the heads of the other vampires, he caught the Slayer's eye.

"Ron?" she called. "Are you okay?"

The red-head - Ron - rose from the ground like a seriously pissed-off demon. His fists slammed once, twice, three times into Spike's chest and stomach. Spike gasped as several of his ribs gave way, and he doubled over.

"Ruddy marvellous," he yelled back. Spike, feeling somewhat out of step, hung limp as Ron hauled him upright again.

"A lot of people are scared of vampires," Ron announced. "I'm not. I mean, you're scared of crucifixes, sunlight and holy water, and you have to bite someone to hurt them. Fire demons, _they're_ scary."

He pivoted, and put Spike's head through what remained of the room's window.

"Mucus demons, too, but only the big ones. I had one sneeze on me once, and it took nearly half-an-hour to get free."

Lifting Spike upright again, he smashed his head into the plasterboard wall of the hospital room. Spike's bleached-blonde head shattered the wall and he found himself - his head, at least - in the corridor. Ron grabbed his collar and hauled him back into the room, depositing him unceremoniously onto the floor.

Spike looked up at the other vampires, but they were still under the Master's hypnotic influence, devoted to subduing the Slayer until given another command.

_And only responding to the Master or Voldemort. Bloody hell._

"Actually, I suppose mucus demons aren't that scary. Sticky, but not scary," Ron continued as he grabbed Spike by the scruff of he neck. "Chaos demons, now, they're scary sods."

_Chaos demons?_

"I suppose it's probably because you never know quite what they're going to do next," Ron continued.

_Dru__ left me for a chaos demon._

Spike grabbed Ron's leg and lunged, using his arms to pull himself upward and sinking his teeth through the heavy denim. He tasted blood, and as Ron staggered backwards, rose to his feet, invigorated.

"Bloody chaos demons," he spat. "Now, nothing personal, mate, 'cos I reckon you and me could probably sit down and have a pretty good chat over a pint or two, but..."

Spike attacked.

* * *

Harry crashed backwards through the fire door, his swiftly-cast shield charm barely holding as Voldemort's bone-shattering jinx glanced off it. He teetered on the edge of the fire-stairs behind him, but barely had a chance to try and catch his balance before Voldemort was upon him. The dark wizard flowed forward and Harry toppled backwards, crashing heavily down the stairs with Voldemort's tall form wrapped around him.

* * *

Spike's attack sent the vampire and his opponent crashing through the weakened wall of the hospital room and out into the corridor beyond. Rearing back, he drove his fists into Ron's stomach, his chest, and his face, drawing blood with the last pair of blows as the redhead's nose cracked and twisted on his knuckles.

Spike stood up, and shook the plaster dust from his coat. He grinned as he looked down at his dazed opponent, and reached down to grab-

"_Fernunculus_"

Spike reared back in pain - "Bloody wizards!" - hands clutched over his face as he felt the painful boils erupt across his cheeks and nose. The faint breeze blowing from the hospital's air conditioning felt like a hacksaw being raked across his face as he staggered backwards, and when the wizard followed up with another spell - "_Reducto_" - which glanced off Spike's wrist to the accompaniment of a crack from the bone.

But Spike was already feeling better.

Aching wrist aside, he felt good, and even that was only a minor ache. The boils were disappearing already, and the red-head looked worried.

"Feeling a little bit worn out, mate?" Spike smirked, although his grin faltered as his cheek creased over one of the last remaining boils. "Wasn't much punch to those spells. Thought you'd have me on the bloody _floor_, didn't you?"

He grinned again, painlessly this time. His features shifted and contorted, and now Ron stared into the face of Spike the vampire, killer of Slayers, one of the most ruthless creatures on the face of the planet.

"Well bugger you and the horse you rode in on."

Spike lunged forward once more. Ron didn't even have time to get his hands up in defence.

* * *

Buffy moved tirelessly, drawing on reserves of speed and strength that usually went untapped. But she knew that it was a draining experience, knew that facing so many vampires was almost suicidal. She had her back to the wall, and it was the only thing keeping her alive, concentrating only on the vampires in front of her, letting Slayer instincts honed over thousands of years handle those that came from the side. There were fewer enemies now, she had killed so many, but still they came forward, in ones and two, groups and packs.

She thrust, and another vampire died. Two more came forward to take its place.

She fought on.

* * *

Xander and Hermione were just in time to see Harry and Voldemort disappear around the corner of the long corridor, fighting tooth and nail all the way. They paused for a few seconds, the near-silence of the corridor punctuated by the muffled sounds of fighting from within the room. Xander smirked as he heard the repeated sound of vampires dusting, but Hermione was less serene as there was no sign of Ron.

And then Spike and Ron crashed through the wall of the room, and Spike was pummeling Ron ferociously. Ron managed a few weak spells, but Spike threw them off without too much trouble. He launched himself at his red-haired opponent, features twisting as he bore Ron to the ground.

"Ron!" Hermione screamed.

"Wait!" Xander grabbed her arm.

Ron rolled with Spike's attack, using the vampire's momentum to roll backwards and pitch Spike into the wall. He rolled free as Spike crashed gracelessly to the floor. Ron clambered to his feet and then kicked Spike in the chest, folding the vampire around his boot.

"Ron!" Hermione and Xander were already moving, but Hermione's call only served to distract Ron at the crucial moment. Spike rose, using Ron's own leg as a lever to lift him off his feet. Ron hung in mid-air for a moment, spinning helplessly, before crashing into the wall and sliding to the ground.

Xander tried to grab Spike, but was met with a sweeping roundhouse kick to the jaw that sent him sprawling. Hermione's conjured stake was caught in mid-air as Spike, bloodied and battered, feral and furious, turned to face her.

"My, you're a ripe one, aren't you?" he smirked. "Not even been picked yet, have you love?"

"Stay back," Hermione ordered, her wand aimed steadily at Spike's heart.

"Or what?" Spike replied, casually tossing the stake into the air, catching it as it span. "You'll jinx me? Never met a witch who came within spitting distance before, pet, so what makes you think you'll be any different?"

He threw the stake at Hermione. She ducked just before it hit her, giving Spike all he time he needed to launch himself at her. As they crashed to the ground, Spike reared back, and prepared to lunge at Hermione's exposed neck.

* * *

Buffy's stake penetrated the chest of the last of the drones. It dusted with the same shriek as the others. Buffy wiped her brow, the gritty ash of more than forty vampires caking her from head to toe.

She sank wearily onto her haunches, lungs heaving. The crashes from outside the room told her that there was more fighting going on, but as she coughed at the dust-laden air, she knew that needed a moment to catch her breath.

"That must have been very trying for you."

Buffy looked up, and then she let her head fall, eyes closing as she breathed a heavy sigh.

The Master was sitting on the end of Faith's bed, bright eyed and pointy toothed.

Buffy rose wearily, limbs aching.

The Master was in front of her in an instant, his hand wrapped around her throat, talons digging into the back of her neck. He lifted her easily, as though she was of no consequence. She kicked feebly at him, but her movements stopped as his gaze rose to meet hers. She fell still, Mr. Pointy dropping from her limp fingers and clattering noisily on the floor in the silent room.

"Yes... You are still unable to resist me, aren't you, Slayer? Oh, your blood was potent indeed, and now I will have it all, and your other Slayer as well. Perhaps she will put up more of a fight."

* * *

Harry and Voldemort lay at the foot of the stairs, chests heaving as they struggled to shake off the after effects of their fall.

"Just... die, Potter," Voldemort hissed, clawing across the linoleum floor towards his wand. "Eighteen years I've hunted you, and tonight will be the last night."

Harry didn't say anything. His fingers closed over his wand, and he turned slowly, painfully, bringing it to bear on Voldemort just as Voldemort aimed his wand at Harry.

"_Avada__ Kedavra!_"

"_Expelliarmus_"

The spells hit in mid-air. They crackled, and a golden beam shot out, catching the wandtips of the two enemies. Once again, Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort were joined by their wands.

The beam shuddered as beads of light appeared along its length. Harry wanted to sink back onto the cold hospital floor. To come so far, only to be stuck in the same battle of wills he had barely survived four years before...

_It's not fair! _he wanted to scream. _Why this? Why now?_

He knew that there was no real answer. He had been selected as the wizard who would fight Voldemort. One of them would win, one of them would lose. And now, after eighteen years, it had come to this. Thousands of miles from home, alone, with only his most hated enemy for company...

A golden cage began to form around them, offshoots from the beam holding their wands locked together. The beads, Harry barely noticed, were moving steadily towards his wand. He tried to will them away, but he didn't have the strength.

Voldemort's lips split into a smile as the first bead made contact. At once, Harry's wand began to emit spells. The ghosts of a shield spell, a confusion spell, a disarming spell and many others floated from the end of his wand. With each ghost, Harry felt himself weaken. The beam was solid gold now, a fixed, almost immovable in space between himself and Voldemort. He couldn't release his wand, couldn't tear it free, and with each spell that reappeared from his wand, the corridor around him seemed to darken, the sounds became duller. He raised his gaze to meet Voldemort, who had risen to his feet, and found his enemy inspecting him as dispassionately as he might look at an insect before stepping on it.

"At last, Potter, the end has come. You have disrupted my plans for the last time. I wanted you dead, Potter, but as a vampire, my slave. Sadly, I will have to settle for you just being dead. Good-bye, Potter."

Voldemort broke the link without any apparent difficulty, drew back his arm, and declared: "_Avada_-"

* * *

A strong arm wrapped itself around Spike's neck and wrenched him backwards. He spluttered as he was dragged away from Hermione, and watched helplessly as Xander entered the frame and helped her to her feet. That left one person holding him, but Spike was almost helpless, unable to reach anything because of the angle he was being held with.

"Hermione," Ron barked over Spike's head. "Put a stake in the bastard and let's help Buffy."

"What? Oh, yes, of course," Hermione replied, gingerly touching her throat. Ron could see the angry welts on the side of her neck where Spike's fingers had clutched at her, and tightened his grip even further on Spike's neck.

"Bl'dy h'l!" Spike gasped.

"Shut up, you," Ron snarled. He grabbed Spike's hair with his free hand and released his grip on the vampire's neck.

It was all the opportunity Spike needed. He twisted, and drove an elbow into Ron's gut. Rising, he grabbed the back of Ron's head and threw him face first into the wall.

Xander pushed Hermione behind him as Spike advanced along the corridor, fangs glinting in the half-light of the flickering neon lamps in the ceiling.

Xander drew a cross from inside his jacket and held it up. Spike faltered mid-step, and then snarled.

"Too long you've been in my face, you little twerp. It's over tonight, and I'll show your corpse to the ruddy Slayer before I kill her too."

He grabbed Xander's outstretched arm and twisted. Xander's face went white, and the cross fell from his hand. Spike pulled, and Xander sprawled to the floor, face down, arm twisted unnaturally in its socket. With a sharp push, Xander barked a short cry of pain. Spike crouched down and grabbed the back of his head, before cracking his forehead into the floor. Xander moaned, and lay still.

Rising and turning in one swift motion, Spike twisted to avoid Hermione's Stunning hex, and then slapped the wand from her hand.

"Be grateful, love," he smiled, as his fingers closed around her neck. "Normally I might spend some time with a sweet little platelet like you, but not today. There's a pair of Slayers in that room, so I'm just gonna go eat them, give you a chance to escape. 'Course, if you're still here when I get back, all bets are off."

He pitched her to his right, keen hearing detecting the muted snap of her collarbone amid the meaty thump as she hit the wall.

He stood between the three unconscious teenagers, smirking as he surveyed their twisted forms. He took out his packet of cigarettes, and lit a match on Ron's forehead. Puffing happily on the cigarette, he headed back into Faith's room.

* * *

Voldemort's arm swung around. "_-Kedav-_"

* * *

"More tea, Joyce?" Remus offered.

"Oh, thank you," Joyce smiled.

* * *

"Right, I'll just have a munch on the unconscious one, shall I?" Spike asked, regarding the tableau of the Master and the Slayer.

"You'll do no such thing," the Master replied. "They are mine."

"Hey now, that wasn't the deal," Spike protested.

The Master turned away from Buffy to face Spike, although he still held the Slayer in mid-air.

"Take this," he snapped, holding out a heavy parchment envelope. "It will tell you all you want. And then," he smiled. "You can kill all the Slayers you want."

The smile disappeared from his face as quickly as it had appeared.

"But these are mine."

Spike glowered briefly at the Master, but took the envelope.

"Yeah, well, that's it, right? From now on, you can find someone else to do your dirty work for you."

"Spike, you were never anything more than a stalking horse," the Master frowned. "I never did understand dear Drusilla's fondness for you. Tactically inept, prone to wild outbursts of emotion and frankly, the fashions of the times have passed you by, my boy. The black leather look has gone beyond passé and you are in desperate danger of becoming, oh, what was the word... retro."

Spike grinned.

"Maybe, but I always knew one thing more than you did."

"And what's that?"

"Don't take my bloody eyes off a Slayer if the bitch ain't dead."

"What?"

Buff's feet came up together, catching the Master in the side of his face. The vampire staggered backwards, releasing Buffy. She dropped to her feet, smoothly crouching and picking up Mr. Pointy, before wading into the Master with a barrage of kicks and punches.

"You see," Spike said, dragging on his cigarette as he leafed through the contents of the envelope, "that hypnosis is a good trick, if you can do it. But you have _got_ to keep eye contact, otherwise, well, I think you're learning all about the otherwise. Bye for now, mate."

Spike found his way back out into the corridor, only to be floored as Ron crashed into him.

"Bloody hell!" Spike rolled with the attack, only to be trapped mid roll by a Body-Bind curse from Hermione that glanced off his shoulder and momentarily paralysed his upper-body. Struggling to his feet, cigarette still hanging from his lips, he looked at the fierce scowls on the faces of Hermione and Ron, the wands they were both holding, and the broken, pointed mop handle in Xander's hand.

He spat out his cigarette. "Guess I shouldn't have left you all with one good hand each, huh?"

The three teenagers glared balefully at him. Blood trickled from a cut on Ron's hairline, and Spike licked his lips as he looked at it. Hermione's expression hardened still further, and she waved her wand at him.

"Oh, sod it," he snarled, and turning, he began to sprint down the corridor.

"_Palum_" One stake whizzed past Spike's left ear as he dashed down the hall. The other caught him in his shoulder and sent him tumbling forward. His arms still frozen in front of him, he bounced back upright and staggered drunkenly backwards.

"Right, sorry and all-"

He stumbled into the window and toppled backwards out of it. Xander, Ron and Hermione sprinted up the corridor and peered through the window. Spike was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

Buffy and the Master stood on either side of Faith's bed. Buffy's chest was heaving, her breath rasping in her parched throat as she avoided the gaze of former and current enemy.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I could keep going all night," the Master declared. "The thought of a nice, filling meal at the end of a fight always seems to spur me on, don't you find?"

Buffy stared at the Master's hands. Sucking in a deep breath, she laid her own hands on Faith's bed, Mr. Pointy clasped tightly in her right hand.

"Well, are we going to again? Or do you need more time to get your breath back? I wouldn't want you to feel as I didn't give you a fair chance." A thought occurred to him. "Actually, I don't want you saying anything, since I'm trying to kill you."

Buffy vaulted over the bed and caught the Master in the chest with a kick, but the vampire grabbed Buffy's knee and used his own fall to provide the momentum as he pivoted around, swinging Buffy like a hammer-thrower before pitching her out through the shattered window that had already been the point of exit that night for Harry, Ron and even Spike's head that night.

Buffy crashed into the ceiling outside the room with a whuff of air exploding from her lungs. She dropped limply to the ground as the Master came through the doorway.

"Buffy!" Xander called from the other end of the hallway. Buffy couldn't reply. The familiar pain of a number of cracked ribs was among the least of her concerns as the Master stood before her, arms crossed, a sardonic smile on his face.

"Well, I suppose it was too much to hope," he sighed. "I was only gone for two years, after all. Small chance that you'd be able to catch up with me when it comes to fighting. You won on a fluke last time, Slayer. You surprised me by returning from the dead. Very vampiric of you, although Slayers always walk with one foot in the dark. Tonight, there are no surprises - _and don't even think of waving that wand at me, girl, if you want to keep the hand that's holding it_ - " Hermione's arm dropped to her side as the Master's hypnotic command took hold.

"Now, where was I? Oh, yes, your death. It will be, well, not quick. Slow, and incredibly painful as I drain every last drop of blood from your body. But I'm honest about it, which I've always felt is a great comfort to my victims."

"Uh, Mr. the Master?" Xander put up his hand.

"Huh?" The Master looked up, his gaze falling on Xander, who quickly closed his eyes. "Xander Harris, brought Buffy back from the dead... Can I just say, before she kills you _again_, I have to respect a man, well, demonspawn-hell fiend-vampire thing, who can use humour in the face of death."

"Cease your prattling, child," the Master ordered. "This is between the Slayer and me."

"Not exactly, mate," Ron commented. "I mean, eight of us, one of you, Merlin, it's not even like it's going to be a fair fight."

The Master turned, and cursed as he saw Ginny, Giles, Willow and Oz standing at the other end of the corridor.

"Very well, then," the Master sighed. "Another time, perhaps."

He charged at Ron, Xander and Hermione, bowling the injured trio over.

"Not so fast," Buffy declared, rising smoothly to her feet. "Thanks, guys." She nodded to the others, before sprinting after the ancient vampire. Halfway along the corridor, she stopped, took aim, and threw Mr. Pointy as hard as she could.

The Master screamed as the wooden stake stabbed through his thigh. He stumbled, flattered, and then crashed down against the wall. Buffy walked up to him calmly, the others gathered behind her.

"It's been fun," Buffy declared, grabbing the Master and hauling him upright. "Always nice to see old friends. But you should be off. Make sure you call if you're going to be in town again, you hear?"

"Wait, I -"

Buffy dropped him neck-first across the window sill.

"Bye now."

She slammed the window shut and watched dispassionately as the vampire's severed head bounced once on hitting the ground before disappearing into a cloud of dust.

The decapitated body jerked for a few seconds, before exploding into ash. Everyone stared at the forlorn bundle of clothes left behind.

"I thought," Hermione said, a little wearily, "that a vampire's clothes disappear when it dies."

"There's a knack to it," Buffy shrugged.

"Has anyone seen Harry?" Ginny asked.

"Er, he went off with You-Know-Who," Ron replied.

"And no-one went with him?" Ginny asked. "Which way did he go?"

"Downstairs, I think," Ron muttered, avoiding his sister's gaze. "They don't seem to be around here."

Ginny scowled.

"Should we go and look for him?" Buffy asked. Hermione shook her head.

"Harry wouldn't want us to interfere when he's fighting Voldemort," she said. "It's up to him, now."

Hermione and Ginny shared a glance that only Buffy seemed to notice.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Hermione and Ginny looked up guiltily.

"Nothing," Hermione said.

"You're a bad liar, Hermione," Ron stated, frowning at his girlfriend. "Did you two do something to Harry?"

"To Harry? No," Hermione replied, meeting Ron's eyes evenly.

"Then what did you do? And this is _Harry_ we're talking about, so don't lie to me."

"I did a spell," Ginny said, looking even paler than usual. "With Harry's wand. If his wand gets tied to Voldemort's again, it might help."

"What spell was it?" Willow asked. "I thought you didn't know any protective spells?"

"It wasn't a protective spell," Hermione replied. "Not in the way you mean."

"What was it then?"

* * *

"_-ra._"

The last of the ghost spells escaped Harry's wand.

Time seemed to enter slow motion. Harry, on the edge of unconsciousness, watched the green Killing Curse lance through the air towards him.

The ghost spell hung in mid-air, shining brightly, tinted green by the oncoming curse. Harry was just curious enough to hold onto consciousness, wanting to see the Killing Curse blow through the misty ghost, wanting to feel the blow that ended his life.

To his surprise, he saw nothing of the sort.

The Killing Curse collided with the misty ghost spell, but rather than passing through, it refracted.

Backwards.

A thousand needle-sharp beams of green light bounced back from the ghost spell and slammed into Voldemort.

The Dark wizard didn't say anything. He merely staggered backward several steps, wand clattering to the ground beside him.

Harry blinked, green eyes focusing slowly on his opponent. He seemed to rise of his own accord and, as he took an unbidden step towards Voldemort, his chest came into contact with the ghost of the spell.

Harry's eyes snapped open

_"It was a love spell," Ginny answered. "I cast it on him, and if the ghost of it appears, and he touches it..."_

_"What?"_

_"It should help," Hermione finished._

_"Should?"_

_"You know what Harry's like," Hermione sighed. "He won't let us get involved with Voldemort, so this is what we're able to do to help him, and it's help he needs. At worst, the spell will do nothing."_

_"And at best?" Buffy asked._

Harry's feet lifted from the ground, his arms trailing slightly behind him as he levitated a few inches upwards. He was dazzled by the bright light in the formerly dark corridor, and it took him a few seconds to realise that the light was coming from him. A white aura surrounded him, and he felt his hair standing on end, spreading out around his head like a halo.

His gaze settled on Voldemort, who was shaking in place. Blood seeped from his flat nostrils and red eyes. The Dark wizard opened his mouth, but blood exploded from there as well.

"Still healing, are you?" Harry asked, reaching out one hand towards his life-long opponent. His eyes narrowed, his hand pulling back and then slamming into Voldemort's chest.

_"He really will be invincible."_

Blood-red eyes flew open as Harry's hand sundered flesh and shattered ribs. One sharp tug was sufficient to tear the wizard's heart from his chest. Harry noted, without surprise, that the organ was pitch-black and far smaller than that of a normal man.

"Heal from that, you murdering wanker," Harry hissed, the heart falling to the floor beside him as Voldemort's lifeless body crashed to the ground.

**The End (Except for the Epilogue)**

**zayra** Glad you enjoyed it. Hope you like the conclusion, too.

**Harry/Ginnyfan4ever:** One of these days, I'm going to ship Harry and Ginny with other people. I do hope you'll forgive me...

**Emba** The whole Joyce/Remus thing came about when I thought of the 'More tea?' line. It had to get in there somewhere...

**Emma Barrows:** Glad you've enjoyed the story :-)

**Angels Touch:** It'll be our little secret

**Tanydwr**I always felt that Joyce deserved someone better then Ted...


	6. Epilogue

**_Epilogue_**

"You'll stay in touch?" Willow asked Hermione as all around them, the group of friends prepared to part ways.

"Of course. It will be nice to have someone like you to talk to," Hermione replied.

"Someone smart, you mean?" Willow replied. The two young women shared a smile.

"So, Quidditch?" Xander asked.

"I'll send you a couple of magazines. Maybe you can come over and watch a game sometime?" Ron suggested.

"That'd be cool. I mean, Buffy'd be lost here without me, but what the heck. I'm travelling around the country this summer anyway, so if I get bored, I'll head on over to England."

"If I learn of anything to help a Muggle werewolf-" Remus said

"That'd be cool. Likewise," Oz replied.

"How is he?" Buffy asked.

"Robust. Calm. Quiet," Ginny replied, smiling a little. "He laughed last night."

"Think he'll be okay?"

"Yes. We'll be there to make sure of it."

"I'm glad," Buffy replied. "A Chosen One should always have friends around to keep an eye on them."

"He does," Ginny replied, as Ron dropped an arm around his sister's shoulders and nodded.

"Good," Buffy said. "It seems to work for me."

****

**The End**


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